THE SECOND UMBRELLA
26 September 2019
Chisenhale Art Place, 64-84 Chisenhale Road, Bow, London E3 5QZ
The exhibition explores the roles that contemporary art can play when social movements fade into memory and uncertain political realities emerge. Among the works there is a two-channel video installation documenting the attempts by Hong Kong people researching the National Archives in London to unearth the history of Hong Kong. In conjunction with the exhibition there is a screening of Matthew Torne’s documentary Last Exit to Kai Tak (2018), which weaves together the stories and interactions of five Hong Kong activists during the post-Umbrella Movement period.
This programme is part of collaboration between the Art Department of Goldsmiths, University of London and Chisenhale Studios.
Dorothy Cheung
The Other Shore of Memory: a living document (2019)
two-channel video installation
The artist creates a two-channel video installation that consists of fragments of unused footage and materials for her documentary Home, and a Distant Archive (2019), which explores the lives of people working on the archive of Hong Kong. While taking all unselected material for the film, it questions what one should remember, and explores how the selection is made in film editing and one’s memory.
Umbrella 2.0 – The Second Meaning (2019), sculpture
It is a reconfigured umbrella, made up of abstract lines of black and white. The audience is invited to pass the umbrella around freely, each person holding the object briefly. The artist presents a symbol of collective memories in an everyday life object, responding to the psychological burden caused by social unrest in Hong Kong. She brings this sensation to the audience by merely engaging in daily life for its own sake.
