POV: A Night of Experimental Sights and Sounds
Video and Sound Program Curated by Sunshine Wong and Mat Steel, Coordinated by Samantha Culp and Beatrix Pang, Jan 4 2008
Presented at KLUUBB, Wanchai, Hong Kong

POV is an ongoing series of events with a focus on sound and video art, each time inviting different guests to curate a program from their personal network of friends and contacts. The first in the series will see Mat Steel and Sunshine Wong presenting a selection of experimental video work by artists based in and around Sheffield and Berlin, alongside abstract sounds from their personal music collections.

(still from a video by Beatrix Pang)

TAKE SOME REST: New Videos from the Edge of Hong Kong
Curated by Ashley Wong and Samantha Culp for VIDEOTAGE
Presented at the Asian Art Biennale 2007, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan

Artists: Chi Jang Yin, Kwan Sheung-Chi, Warren Leung Chi-Wo, Beatrix Pang, Eric Siu, Wong Wai-Nap, Doris Wong Wai-Yin & Project Big Bang (Amy Cheung, Bo Zheng, Erkka Nissinen, Joseph Chan, Kwan Ng, Mark Fell)

Videotage started more than 20 years ago as a collective and platform for independent, challenging video works from Hong Kong. Decades later, many have said that “Hong Kong has no more video art.” But perhaps this is not the whole truth. The program “Take Some Rest,” curated by Ashley Wong and Samantha Culp for Videotage, aims to explore the current state of video and works in the city and its complex borders. Who are the new pioneers, and how might they continue to surprise, especially in an age where video itself has become “old media”? With 2007 marking the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from Britain to Hong Kong, how are artists and cultural agitators playing with real and symbolic time, and blurring the lines between traditional genres and identities? In an ever-changing city(-state) born of an unprecedented historical situation, how are themes of transformation, loss, and marginality reflected? Perhaps Hong Kong video art has not disappeared—it’s just been in hibernation. In TAKE SOME REST, current Hong Kong video art comes out to play… even in the form of a waking dream, where slumber can be seen as a state of subversion.

(video still from “OP,” Eric Siu)

“Ghost Eyes/陰陽眼 (Yam Yeung Ngaan):
Strange Visions from Hong Kong and Beyond”
Videos by: Wanda Choi Wai Chi, Chow Tsz-Kwan, Tyler Coburn, Joe Hsieh, Joseph Kwan Zhi Yue, Hung Chi Wing, Ma Chun Fu, Erkka Nissinen (w/Valter Kokot and Fabian Dorch), Eric Siu Chi Man, Martin Skauen, Jervis Suen
Presented October 2006 at the Footscray Audio Visual Social Club, Victoria, Australia

Curated by Samantha Culp, FUSE Artist-in-Residence at Videotage, Hong Kong, October 2006
With additional support from Hong Kong IFVA (the Independent Film and Video Festival), the Hong Kong Art Center, and the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong doesn’t really have Halloween – perhaps because every other day of the year is already occupied with thoughts of ghosts, demons, and the uncanny. For instance, the concept of “ghost eyes”—the actual physiological difference in the eyeballs of those who can see ghosts or supernatural things. Since most of us are not blessed (or cursed) with “ghost eyes,” here is a substitute pair for you to try on. Mostly from Hong Kong (with a few from fellow superstitious nation Taiwan, and other international locales thrown in for colonial good measure), this selection of videos explore themes of horror, fear, and the grotesque in unique and surprising ways. Some are narratives that reveal ghosts or hidden evils, while others are more experimental works that play with darkness and the grotesque (often in combination with comedy). This Halloween, enjoy a little (trick-or) treat from HK, and peer through the lens of “ghost eyes” for a short while.