The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Dwelling in Tranquillity – Reinventing Traditional Gardens

EVENT DESCRIPTION

The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) unveils its new thematic exhibition “The Hong Kong Jockey Club Series: Dwelling in Tranquillity—Reinventing Traditional Gardens” today. Staged in Gallery 7, through seven new artworks created by eight Hong Kong interdisciplinary artists and artists’ group, the exhibition aims to interpret and reinvent the art of Chinese garden, a time-honoured tradition. This innovative blend of kinetic, multimedia, and sound installations offers visitors a multisensory experience and helps them see Palace Museum culture in a new light.

Solely sponsored by The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust (the Trust), this is the first Hong Kong Jockey Club Series exhibition presented under the Trust’s donation to the HKPM to support its talent development initiative, exhibitions, and educational programmes in 2023–2031. It testifies to The Hong Kong Jockey Club’s vision to support the HKPM in promoting Chinese culture to future generations and nurturing Hong Kong artists.

Experimental exhibition facilitating dialogue between contemporary art and traditional Chinese garden culture
The exhibition presents seven newly commissioned interdisciplinary artworks created by eight early and mid-career Hong Kong artists and artists’ group of different practices. The multimedia artworks aim to capture the essence of traditional Chinese garden. During a field trip, these artists studied traditional gardens in Beijing—including the imperial gardens inside the Forbidden City, the Garden of Perfect Brightness (Yuanmingyuan), the Garden of Nourishing Harmony (Yiheyuan), and the North Sea Park (Beihai gongyuan)—and the treasures of the Palace Museum. Blending elements such as pavilions, bridges, Taihu rocks, sound of nature, and the pulse of the audience, these multimedia installations create a picturesque, tranquil garden in dialogue with Palace Museum objects and immerse visitors in compelling visuals and soundscapes.

The exhibition design incorporates traditional Hong Kong elements such as iron gates and tiles. The gallery space offers plenty of seating, encouraging visitors to wander around, sit back, relax, and enjoy the nuances of the reinvented gardens and the pleasure of discovery within the gallery.