All posts tagged: Vvzela Kook

Vvzela Kook

Published by Christie Lee

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 …

The 3rd Jockey Club New Arts Power Presents: Borrowed Scenery & Flâneur

Published by Artomity Magazine

Dec 14, 2019 – Jan 12, 2020 12 to 7pm Unit 12, Cattle Deport Artist Village63 Ma Tau Kok RoadTo Kwa Wan, Kowloon Multimedia exhibition Borrowed SceneryThe multimedia exhibition Borrowed Scenery is exploring urban development issues in the 21st century. The participating artists include C&G, Ko Sin-tung, Kong Chun-hei, Vvzela Kook, Sarah Lai, Lai Lon-hin and Ocean Leung.  Through installation art, video, photos and other media, the partaking artists illustrate their imagination generated by the urban space, interpret their observations and feelings of the city, and reveal their expectations for the liberation of public realm and the civil rights. The artists also look at the current issues from their unique perspectives and, in the process, explore and examine the way in which art reflects and responds to the urban phenomena. Extended outdoor performance FlâneurPresented as an extended performance of the exhibition, curators André Chan and Jing Chin-yin Chong collaborate with choreographer Sarah Xiao to create the 30-minute outdoor performance Flâneur deliberately for busy downtown Tsim Sha Tsui. The name of “Tsim Sha Tsui” was recorded in the classics as early as in the Ming Dynasty. Subsequently, …

Vvzela Kook

Published by Artomity Magazine

By Christie Lee / I’d expected a philosophical explanation for Hong Kong artist Vvzela Kook’s quirky name, but it turns out that it was all due to a technicality. The artist had wanted to call herself vuvuzela, after the African horn, but on realising the domain name was taken, took out the two “u”s.   Kook’s art, however, is rather better thought out. Research is key to her artistic process. During our conversation, she repeatedly describes her works as projects rather than videos or installations, and says she spends the bulk of her time reading, researching and mapping the details of her projects in her mind. It’s similar to the artistic process of fellow Hong Kong artist Samson Young, for whom Kook works as an assistant. Born in Dalian, a port city on the southern tip of Liaoning province in northern China, the 29 year old received her BA from Hangzhou University before reading for a MA in Creative Media at City University in Hong Kong. We chatted at her new studio in Ngau Tau …