Backpacks on and let’s go 半滿的隱形背包: Artists going around to chat about finding new structures to make work in
By: Ghost
Tags: Conversations, Artist, Travel, Hardship, Funding

With Lara Ward at Groundwork Pro, Cardiff

[中文版往下滑 Scroll down for Chinese Ver.]

The other day we went hiking on Dragon’s Back to celebrate my birthday. It was great. We took our shirts off but left our backpacks on. And now, we look like we have invisible backpacks over our shoulders. Jokingly we asked each other, “Are you tired?”

When we were in London, we constantly missed the hill climbs, the palm-sized butterflies and shiny beetles we saw on this hike. We used to complain about how flat the landscape there is. The only way to get a view of the city from above is to go up a tall building. One of those would be Tate Modern, a gallery where we would go once in a while to check out what was new there in terms of both arts that hangs on walls and live art.

It’s no coincidence that the same building shows you that standard top-level view of a city’s landscape and the standard top-level view of a city’s art scene. The building is crowded with both tourists who are trying to get a photo of the night view and artists who are trying to get their works photographed and viewed.

Back in our room in Seven Sisters, London, I stuck a piece of a hand-drawn map of art spaces in Nottingham by Paul Hughes on the wall in front of me. He drew it on a blank piece of A4 while explaining what each of them does and whom we should meet while we were there. At the same moment, we were inputting these galleries and studios one by one into Google Maps. It was right after we took our first sip of tea after arriving at his house from Edinburgh.

This happened in February when we were on a trip across Wales, England and Scotland, supported by Pavilion Dance South West, asking the question: despite all the organizations and structures, can we re-imagine and innovate new frameworks where artists can truly take an active role in making things happen? Another way of asking this may be: how can we stop climbing the ladder, stop trying to catch the attention of big institutes, and start focusing on making art itself?

We came back to Hong Kong in late March, thinking that we would only stay for a month. With Hong Kong Dance Alliance as our bridge, we were meeting and chatting with artists, directors, critics and other art practitioners in Hong Kong, asking similar questions, observing the local art ecology from a new perspective. Little did we know we would still be here now, in July.

When we left Hong Kong in 2018, we were only involved in the local art scene as visitors, audience members, and occasional contestants at dance competitions. Coming back as artists who wish to participate in and be part of this scene has been an intimidating yet fresh experience. We let ourselves engage in conversations with different people, artists from different disciplines and art practitioners at different levels of organizational structures.

Let me be bold and write this — here are a few first impressions we have had of the local art scene:

- People who are willing to meet up are really nice. Very generous in sharing their thoughts with nearly zero reservation. Also very active in sharing what they are working on.

- There seem to be adequate platforming opportunities for emerging dance artists to create short, small scale works.

- Funders are very mysterious. It is almost impossible to meet them. The official details about funding opportunities and applications are very general. You have to be very sensitive and alert to gather sufficient information from your peers to actually be able to get support.

We have been having coffee with so many people. One of those we met is Sunanda Wong, a film director. He was a secondary school classmate of Ghost’s and they bumped into each other at a gathering. Realizing that they had both wandered into the same industry, we decided to meet up and chat. The conversations just went on and on. Drink after drink. Cigarette after cigarette. Ever inspiring. Ever encouraging. It turned out that he used to be a Buddhist monk and has decided to keep on working as a director of art films.

Once I was really frustrated over a minor incident. I called him and we met up for a can of beer. After I told him what had happened and how I felt, he asked me, “What have you understood now?”

Perhaps after all the hundreds of conversations we have been through, no matter whether with a funding manager at Arts Council England, an Argentinian live artist based in Glasgow, or Ivy Tsui, the Hong Kong independent dance artist, we are always carrying this half-empty but a half-full backpack. This is not merely about the half-full glass idea. This is about how we are always eager to hear more, absorb more and see from others’ point of view. There are some things in the bag already that we are able to pull out and compare with the new ones. Yet, magically, the backpack will never be full. This may be to do with empathy, or maybe more to do with curiosity about our surroundings.

At the end of the day, keeping our minds active is our most important job as artists. We keep checking our “backpacks” from time to time. We restock, rethink and reflect. By doing that, we find meanings, we find the internal drive for us to make the art happen, we stop ourselves getting lost and frustrated as to why we chose this difficult and different path that our parents told us not to follow. By doing that, our works gain their weight and find an anchor in this cold world. It is never about skills and techniques. It is about how we keep the backpack half-empty.

So: what is the answer to the question about new structures in the art industry and an artist-led framework? Still reflecting.

This article is originally published on Dance Journal/hk on 10 August 2020