- This event has passed.
EVENT DESCRIPTION
“META-MOMENTS”, a multi-disciplinary project curated by MUSTHAVEKEYS, takes place in an unconventional setting at AIRSIDE, a brand-new mixeduse commercial development in Kai Tak. The site-specific artworks explore concepts of work, including productivity, self-image, work relationships, and more. The setting of the project is the chaotic stage when a company has just moved into a new address. Boxes and objects yet to be unpacked are laid out on the floor, dividing the space into different sections for visitors to navigate and ponder.
The modern workplace is associated with formality, constant fluxes and challenges, and endless stress, all deemed unavoidable. The project aims to provide a unique artistic experience for visitors to contemplate and de-stress. The title “Meta-Moments” originates from a concept developed by research psychologist Marc Brackett. It refers to a pause, a small window of time in which we step back to see a situation in a new light, so that we can stay calm and tap into our best selves. With the setting of a work environment, the project explores the possibilities of retaining presence and attaining balances on personal, psychological and societal levels. If, amid setbacks such as interpersonal conflicts, long work hours, eroded personal boundaries and more, we are able to take a meta-moment, we can connect with our true selves and remain calm as we take on the hectic challenges presented by modern work life.
With diverse visual and performing arts backgrounds, the six artists: Shane Aspegren, Chilai Howard, Claire Lee, Wy Lee, Lulu Ngie and Terry Tsang, have consistently explored the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of people. For this project, they have come up with site-specific artworks that include mixed-media, ceramics, video, contemporary dance and more, that look into compassion, positivity, presence, connection, and resilience—themes that are essential to human well-being. Through artworks and experiences that attempt to connect with visitors and audiences, and by addressing the meanings of work, interpersonal relations and self-compassion, the artists seek to showcase the multiple dimensions of the modern human psyche. As visitors inspect the artworks in an office with a spectacular view of the city, they are invited to set aside their worries, to sense, focus, and look into their inner selves—to take a meta-moment, in order words.
Shane Aspegren’s One Can Never Enter the Same Body Twice is a video, sound, and mixed-media installation conceived around the theme of water, an element the artist often refers to in his guided meditations. The installation’s minimal set up consists of a water cooler, a staple object in an office. The water cooler is known as a meeting place for the people in a hectic office environment—a space away from work. This piece’s double-view allows visitors to contemplate the boundaries of their own perception of the ‘self’ within the larger ecosystem. The imagery in the video plays with the miniature landscapes of human, plant, and earth-forms, set against the landscape of the Hong Kong skyline that is on view from the window. Simultaneously, the audio reimagines extracts from vocalization experiments attempting to unblock stuck energy in the Svadhishthana Chakra.
Chilai Howard‘s machine installation work UI, Machine consists of an ordinary office desk, whose drawers repeatedly open and close, a metaphor for the state of the modern man at work. The modern man reports to and leaves work, day in day out, just like a machine. Part of a system, working men become desensitized and lose themselves in the mechanical life/ work. Also acting as spatial designer, the artist’s work is an extension of the design concept, reflecting on how people can maintain their individuality and resilience in the social environment under work pressure.
Claire Lee’s series of visual art pieces invites visitors to re-examine their work lives and inner selves, including the parts they prefer hidden. In Anne, Are You OK?, a large photographic print resembling a screenshot of an online meeting, the peaceful expression on ‘Resusci Anne’, a plastic doll developed for CPR training, calls for much reading. Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood includes a photographic print and a network cable sculpture.
