All posts tagged: Oi!

Vvzela Kook

Phantom Island / Oi! / Hong Kong / Sep 5 – Jan 2, 2023 / In 1851, the government used rubble left by a giant fire in Sheung Wan to extend the shoreline by 15 metres. Since then, many more reclamation projects have taken place in Hong Kong, and 20 or so islands have disappeared from the city’s map.  The extension of our city and the disappearance of our islands find playful expression in Vvzela Kook’s Phantom Island exhibition, at Oi! until January 2.  The idea for a show on Hong Kong’s disappearing islands emerged from the artist’s research into the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club (RHKYC). She’d come across a photo of the former clubhouse of the RHKYC, which used to sit on the current site of Oi! before it was relocated to Kellett Island. Kook noticed that Kellett Island itself stopped being an island after reclamation work in the area. After the discovery, the artist started researching Hong Kong’s disappearing islands. “Wikipedia says 19 islands have disappeared, but I actually found more than …

Tobias Klein’s Three Gardens at Oi!

Tobias KleinThree GardensUntil Oct 30, 2022 Oi! Study and outdoor areas12 Oil StreetNorth Point, Hong Kong(MTR Fortress Hill Station Exit A)+852 2512 3000Mon: 2pm – 8pmTue to Sun: 10am – 8pm lcsd.gov.hk@oioilstreetartspace  Created by Tobias Klein, Three Gardens presents virtual and actual rock installations designed under the notions of Chinese landscape architecture and brings in new features to Oi!. The first garden exists within the entire Oi!, where elements of architecture, water, plants and rocks pervade the existing and new spaces. The second garden is an interactive installation collaborated with Alvaro Cassinelli that creates sensory experiences for visitors using sound and vibrations. The third garden is a digital garden, which links the audience’s on-the-spot experience with a mobile app to broaden their viewing experience.

Kung Chi Shing 龔志成

The first part of Kung Chi Shing’s haunting video City Inside a Broken Sky, Deep Night alternates black-and-white imagery of a construction site amid debris and scaffolding, the colonial-era building of the Oil Street Art Space, and a young boy. Familiar construction noises are interspersed with occasional wailing, an eerie, melancholic sound conveying despair. “Dark in every sense,” in the artist’s own words, the video is the first of four in a series called Soundscape, a meditation on the implications of construction, the use of public space and the city itself. “Construction involves destruction,” he says. “When you destroy something, you’re erasing something that came before it, and Hong Kong is famous for erasing. Every few months an old building is gone, an old space is destroyed to build a new one.” Soundscape was created to mark Oil Street Art Space’s expansion. With two galleries housed in a complex of historical significance, its expansion will include an indoor gallery, and an outdoor venue that will be open to the public. The space has served over …