Exile set to ‘crack open’ the Hong Kong experience
Group’s multimedia exploration delves into years of upheaval
Hong Kong is much more than one of the world’s most recognized metropolises. The city, its name translating as “Fragrant Harbour,” has played an essential role in the rise of global trade and finance. As a former British colony, it became a gateway between cultures and political systems, defining the Cantonese-speaking Chinese diaspora.
Since the transfer of sovereignty in 1997, when it became a special administrative region (SAR) of China, the region has been operating under a 50-yearlong “one country, two systems” political and economic arrangement.
In its latest work Room 2048, Vancouver’s multi-disciplinary Hong Kong Exile explores the two decades of challenges and political upheaval that have accompanied the transfer and speculates on what the lay of the land will be come 2048 when the 50-year mark is reached. The ramifications for the culture, language and lifestyle of the city, its descendants and the diaspora that embarked from it to establish communities around the world are hot topics.
Natalie Tin Yin Gan, Remy Siu and Milton Lim make up Hong Kong Exile. The trio met as students at Simon Fraser University’s School for Contemporary Arts and have been winning accolades for cutting-edge, multimedia works since 2011.
“All of us are first-generation Cantonese Chinese diaspora, so we are in the room and we have no choice but to be ourselves in it,” said Gan. “A lot of the source material for this is drawn from the films of Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai, including Chungking Express, In the Mood For Love and 2046. We actually happened upon this piece while we were working on another one after having a discussion about how his films kind of united the diasporic experience across generations.”
What ends up connecting diasporic groups became a focus of Gan’s research. The creative team wanted to create narratives of nostalgia, longing and loss in one of its signature mixed-media pieces. Transposing that unique cinematic experience found in Karwai’s films into a multimedia work was built around the concept of time passing in a “dream machine.
“A dream machine that is less about dance than about using bodies, fog, digital lights and bombastic pop music to crack open our realities and see what’s there,” said Gan. “It’s actually a much looser work than most other Hong Kong Exile works.”
Gan’s choreography is illuminated and even distorted through the lighting lens and sonic landscape designed by Sium, a co-artistic director. Each member of the creative team (totalling five for this piece) brought something different into the room. Each had a different area of content they wanted to see exposed as well. In discussion, there is a clear sense Room 2048 is the sort of piece that will lend itself to successive reboots as the title date moves closer.
The pace of change in Hong Kong is always going to be hard to express. Room 2048 will be enigmatic. As Siu notes, much of the emotional tone of the work comes from a much more immediate and local longing.
“In my lifetime, it’s gone from going to Richmond hearing almost entirely Cantonese spoken to now when that’s not so much the case,” he says. “I’m nostalgic for that and part of making this piece is trying to hang onto that. But it might just be hanging onto a notion.”