Materia Prima 1999  Para/Site

Exhibition: Materia Prima  Para/Site Art Space, 1999
Hong Kong

- exert from exhibition catalogue Materia Prima – a Hong Kong-Melbourne Art Exchange, Brett Jones, 1999

In and out of Focus

In the window of Para/Site Art Space during December were a series of plastic magnification sheets; conventionally used by visually impaired people to read text on printed pages.  On the inside of the window behind the different sized sheets of magnifying plastic were photographs of Chinese memorials in Australia, and other pieces of symbolic text.  Further back into the interior other pieces of sourced material relating to historical events involving Chinese settlers in Australia were pasted and pinned to two perpendicular walls.   In the space in between, pieces of ‘bound’ furniture were located on the floor.

From the street people viewed these pieces in the window as enlarged images, with the work in the background shifting in and out of focus.  Inside the gallery, viewers looking out to the street saw it as ‘down-sized’ version, like looking through the small screen on a video camera.

This shifting focus and viewing distance from either side of the Para/Site window illustrates the many possible points of engagement to the Materia Prima project.  This shifting back and forward, on and out, up and down, is as much related to observation as it is to processes of dialogue and collaboration………

…. The way the work utilized the space of the gallery to construct new environments with such thoughtful insight demonstrates the skill of participating artists.  Special thanks to Tsang Tak Ping, Kacey Wong, Ching Chin Wai, Gregory Pryor, Janenne Eaton, and Richard Holt for elaborating on the depth and richness of content between our tow cultures.  Thanks to Leung Chi Wo and everyone at Para/Site for their support and time put into the project.  And thanks to Arts Victoria for generously supporting the project.

- exert from catalogue Materia Prima – a Hong Kong-Melbourne Art Exchange, Brett Jones  1999

[ Further reading go to essay "Learning Chinese" ]