Culture
A citywide series of coordinated exhibitions and events examines Hong Kong’s history of epidemics, including plague and Sars, and considers what might be in store for us. Oliver Giles meets the organisers
A citywide series of coordinated exhibitions and events examines Hong Kong’s history of epidemics, including plague and Sars, and considers what might be in store for us
Roughly 5pm, February 21, 2003. Liu Jianlun checks in at the Metropole Hotel in Mong Kok. The 64-year-old doctor has just arrived from Guangdong, where patients have been flocking to his hospital with a mysterious pneumonia. While waiting for the lift, he has a coughing fit, spraying germs into the air and onto buttons. He shuffles to his room and curls up in bed with a fever. Over the next few hours, guests stream in and out of the busy hotel, touching the surfaces Liu has touched, breathing the air he breathed. By the time the doctor dies in hospital a few days later, other Metropole guests are falling sick, though some have since travelled to Singapore, Vietnam, Ireland, Canada and the US, unwittingly unleashing severe acute respiratory syndrome, or Sars, on the world. The rest, as they say, is history—or is it?
“It’s not something we talk about in our day-to-day lives but being prepared for an epidemic is a really important challenge we all face,” says Danielle Olsen, cultural projects manager of the Wellcome Trust, a British biomedical research charity. “It’s a global challenge—especially in a hyper-connected city like Hong Kong. Port cities are wonderful, creative places, but with greater exchange comes greater exchange of germs.”
This somewhat alarming idea is the inspiration behind
Contagious Cities, an exhibition staged simultaneously in Hong Kong, New York and Geneva that explores the history—and possible future—of infectious diseases in cities. Backing this ambitious project is the Wellcome Trust, which has invested billions of pounds in projects ranging from the development of an Ebola vaccine to research into the ethics of medical trials.
“The Wellcome Trust is about fuelling imaginations and sparking ideas, all with the idea of trying to advance human health,” explains Olsen. “But health is much broader than science—it’s social, it’s political, it’s personal. And you can’t get a better way of sharing and communicating ideas than the arts.”
When teams at the trust began brainstorming ideas for Contagious Cities more than two years ago, they knew Hong Kong would have to be part of the project. “Sars has been the 21st century’s most significant outbreak,” says Olsen. “The exhibition has been timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic, which also affected Hong Kong. And Hong Kong suffered from the third plague pandemic [from the 1890s to the 1920s] as well, so there are historic stories here that resonate with 21st-century challenges.”
All these stories are being told in a series of exhibitions and events currently being launched around the city, including a major show called Far Away, Too Close at the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts. This exhibition includes a display of historical documents that reveal what happened in Tai Kwun’s colonial-era buildings— the Central Police Station and prison—during the third plague pandemic, when bubonic plague swept into Hong Kong in 1894 and continued to infect people until the 1920s. Visitors will be standing in the same rooms where government officials and scientists hashed out plans to stop the plague ravaging the city.
“This is a historical show but it’s mostly about sharing anecdotes from individuals who were involved,” explains Winnie Yeung, head of heritage at Tai Kwun. “Through their perspectives, you’ll understand how decisions were made about the plague and how these decisions still shape the city today.” As well as inspiring new building regulations that helped slow the spread of disease, the outbreak also led to the establishment of the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, which remains one of the largest charities in the city to this day.
Elsewhere at Tai Kwun, curator Kwok Ying has organised a contemporary art exhibition exploring the impact of Sars. Many artists have made new works inspired by particular aspects of epidemics—gayle Chong Kwan has created a work inspired by the process of quarantine, for example—while others focused on the emotions evoked during outbreaks of disease, such as paranoia, distrust and anger.
Among these is a new work by Taiwanese artist Chou Yu-cheng that investigates the
link between fear and our sense of smell. “I had a conversation with Chou about the new hygiene practices in Hong Kong after Sars, particularly the regular disinfection of buttons and handles with products scented with lime, lemon and a bit of alcohol,” Kwok recalls. “It’s a way of preventing infectious disease but at the same time the smell keeps reminding us what happened during Sars. It’s a painful collective memory we share in Hong Kong.”
The Wellcome Trust supported two residencies for artists making new works for Far Away, Too Close. Blast Theory, a British artist collective renowned for its interactive installations, travelled to Geneva and became the first ever artists-in-residence at the headquarters of the World Health Organisation. Particularly moved by WHO officials’ memories of the Sars outbreak, Blast Theory has made a scale model of the ninth floor of the Metropole Hotel, where Liu stayed on that fateful day he arrived from Guangdong. At the press of a button, lights embedded in the model trace the spread of the virus from Liu’s room into the corridor and adjoining rooms through a network of air vents in the ceiling.
While Blast Theory was working in Geneva, Hongkonger Angela Su was taking part in a six-month residency at the Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences, the result of which is a 12-minute mockumentary exploring the language we use to describe epidemics and disease. “I came across this book called Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative, by Priscilla Wald,” recalls Su. “Wald says we understand epidemics almost like a detective film. It begins with the emergence of a mysterious disease— usually from the Third World—then with international cooperation there’s eventually the triumph of Western medical science.
“That’s usually how we understand disease outbreaks, and it’s pretty predominant in films, novels and the media. This is actually quite dangerous because it inevitably stigmatises certain cultures and certain people because the disease always seems to come from outside of the West, from African countries or China, for example.” In her video, Su presents an alternative scenario—an example of a disease landing on Earth from outer space.
And this is just what’s happening at Tai Kwun. The Oi! arts space in North Point is working on a variety of events that will bring Hongkongers’ memories of Sars to life, the Asia Art Archive is organising a public workshop exploring the historic role of zines in spreading information about diseases, and Art In Hospital is running zinemaking workshops with patients. Back in Central where the plague raged, the Museum of Medical Sciences has developed a new app that guides people along the Tai Ping Shan Medical Heritage Trail, a meandering walk through Sheung Wan that connects several key historic sites that are hidden in plain sight.
“We at the Wellcome Trust wanted to collaborate with a mix of large and small organisations,” says Olsen. “At the beginning, we didn’t really know what was going to happen. Contagious Cities was never prescriptive. We found people to work with and have let things evolve, so it’s been a shared journey thinking about science, about epidemics, about health. Hong Kong is such an interesting place to explore the history of disease but also the future of health. We have learned so much here.”
Far Away, Too Close runs until April 21 at Tai Kwun. Information about other Contagious Cities initiatives can be found at wellcome.ac.uk