Qingdao Lotus Pond: Open Studio with Ip Wai Lung
Saturday, 17 November 2018, 6:00 – 8:30pm
In English with Khmer translation
Sa Sa Art Projects, #47 St 350 (off 95)
Ip Wai Lung (b. 1989, Guangdong province, China) is an artist living in Hong Kong. In 1996, he moved to Hong Kong with his mother for a reunion with his father right before the Handover. As an immigrant, identity has always been an issue for him despite being educated in Hong Kong since his young age. In 2015, he went to Tibet to practice Zen Buddhism. The experience further confirmed his determination of being an artist.
A self-taught artist, Ip has participated in and self-organised a number of exhibitions in Hong Kong including at Para Site, 1aspace, and C&G. His artwork explores political issues, taboos, and identities in a spontaneous and humorous way. Ip believes in the power of public art; he interferes in the existing social systems with his artwork. Through the conversations with different entities, he delves into the possibility of having new systems in a bid to reconstruct the imagination of society and the world. He works with various media including performance, photographs, and videos.
This two-month aesthetic sojourn in Phnom Penh has allowed the artist to explore several neighbouring cities like Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok, in particular Kampot, a rural area 4 hours away from Phnom Penh by train, where he could experience the Pchum Ben Festival.
The artist has been emotionally struck while travelling in these undeveloped, developing and developed cities: purchasing of goods and commercial consumption are sugarcoated and rationalized by their own religious beliefs, only the worship targets, matters and ideologies behind it differ. It is hard to tell from when desire is the only proof of the existence of individuals. Maybe in cities where excessive consumption has been so common that people within have no time to allocate their desire as a consequence of being disintegrated by Capitalism. In regard to this, the artist attempted to collect traces of desire of city people, including ashes in the incense burners or ATM slips. Through these compressed and unwanted remains, the relationship between religion and consumption culture was reconsidered. Such short-lived carriers of desire would gradually disappear into emptiness, the selfsame fashion how life ends.
More about Ip Wai Lung at: https://ipwailung.com. This residency is made possible through the support from Rei Foundation.
