Abstract
The Umbrella Movement in 2014 drew attention to Hong Kong from across the world and triggered local artists to respond to the current social and political issues through their art. This article discusses three socially engaged projects created in response to the Umbrella Movement by two women artists: Birthday Cakes (2014) and Love China Love Hong Kong Thick Toast (2015) by Phoebe Man, and Singing Under the Moon for Today and Tomorrow (2015) by Jaffa Lam. This article investigates how the aesthetic regime of these projects is realized from a feminist perspective. It argues that women artists can intervene in the male-dominated representations of borders and spatial politics in Hong Kong art to create an alternative by adopting feminist art tactics. Moreover, women artists can take a step further to reconsider the mechanism of identity politics and pay close attention to relational forms in socially engaged art to achieve the dissensus of aisthesis. After all, it is the construction of a community of dissensus that resonates with the spirit of the Umbrella Movement.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 103-124 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | Journal of Visual Art Practice |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 24 Mar 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Zeng Hong is an academic, curator and art critic. She is the Yale-China Arts Fellow in 2020, funded by the Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University. She received an M.A. in Cinema Studies and a Ph.D. in Visual Art Studies. Her research interests lie in contemporary art in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region in China, as well as gender politics in film. She is a part-time lecturer at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her publications include academic articles in the refereed journal Asian Cinema, and critiques in Art World Magazine, HK01 and Stand News. She is the curator of Blown Away – Art, Science and Extreme Weather (Hong Kong, 2019) and Hong Kong in Poor Images (United States, 2020). She is involved as one of the art practitioners of Art Readers, as well as one of the selected emerging art professionals of Para Site in 2018.Keywords
- Hong Kong art
- Chinese contemporary art
- women’s art
- feminist art
- socially engaged art
- Umbrella Movement