Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
Para Site is Hong Kong's leading contemporary art centre and one of the oldest and most active independent art institutions in Asia. It produces exhibitions, publications, discursive, and educational projects aimed at forging a critical understanding of local and international phenomena in art and society.
Founded in early 1996 as an artist run space, Para Site was Hong Kong's first exhibition-making institution of contemporary art and a crucial self-organised structure within the city’s civil society, during the uncertain period preceding its handover to Mainland China. Throughout the years, Para Site has grown into a contemporary art centre, engaged in a wide array of activities and collaborations with other art institutions, museums, and academic structures in Hong Kong and the international landscape. In early 2015, Para Site moved to greatly increased premises, in North Point/Quarry Bay. Throughout its history, Para Site's activities have included a range of different formats, among which P/S magazine (1997-2006), a bilingual publication, which was Hong Kong's first visual arts magazine and a central platform for the development of art writing and of a discursive scene in the city and the Curatorial Training Programme (2007-2010). Since 2012, Para Site has been running an International Art Residency Programme and has been organizing an annual international conference. This is accompanied, starting from 2015, by a new educational format aimed at training young curators and other art professionals. Para Site's activities are made possible by the generous support of its patrons, and grants from foundations and the Government of the HKSAR.
Ocula Report Art Basel in Hong Kong: Exhibitions to See 23 Mar 2019 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula For those visiting during Art Basel in Hong Kong (29–31 March 2019), the smell of fresh paint may still be in the air at the latest heritage conservation project, The Mills, which opened on 16 March to encompass the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textiles (CHAT), joining the ranks with ex-prison complex Tai Kwun, along with Eaton HK—a retro...
Ocula Insight What to Let Go?, the sixth annual Para Site International Conference (22–24 November 2018) organised by Hong Kong non-profit art organisation Para Site, took as its theme the tangled issue of heritage. Fittingly, the conference was held in the JC Cube Auditorium in the recently opened Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts, Hong Kong's new public...
Ocula Insight The second day of What to Let Go?—Para Site's international conference at Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts in Hong Kong—was largely focused on the subjects of artefacts and repatriation.The day began with a local focus as Tina Pang—M+ curator of Hong Kong visual culture—presented an overview of the institution's...
Ocula Insight Para Site Conference: Heritage and Dis/Possession 22 January 2019 For Para Site's 2018 edition of its International Conference, titled What to let go? (22–24 November 2018), Hong Kong's longest-running contemporary art space turned its focus to the politics of heritage. Hosted at Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts, and led by Para Site director Cosmin Costinas together with guest curator Inti Guerrero, the...
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Related Press '2 or 3 Tigers' at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin Art Agenda : 29 June 2017 Though at present the concept of 'media' is almost wholly equated with communication technologies, throughout the modern period this notion extended beyond the technological field, to include aesthetic and spiritual registers. In the late nineteenth century, a medium was someone with the alleged ability to act as a psychic conduit or transmitter,...
Related Press '2 or 3 Tigers': Asian new media artists at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt Art Radar Journal : 31 May 2017 2 or 3 Tigers explores modernity as a colonial pattern inscribed in the history of nation states, militarisation and financialisation as well as an ontological revolution that fundamentally orders the social realm, national narratives and cosmologies, and whose effects have led to a profound crisis of consciousness as well as myriad and multiple...
Related Press Contour Biennale 8, 'Polyphonic Worlds: Justice as Medium' art agenda : 7 April 2017 What could be more pertinent to today's helter-skelter mudslide into the political abyss than a reflection on the idea of justice? The eighth edition of the Contour Biennial is dedicated to this most noble of themes. Both thrilling and frustrating, the biennial offers vertiginous perspectives by artists and theorists, as well as the inevitable...
Related Video & Audio Interview: We speak to Tsang Kin-wah and Doryun Chong TimeOut Hong Kong : 23 May 2015 Every two years, the titans of the art world converge on Venice for the most prominent contemporary art exhibition on the planet. From modest beginnings in 1895, the Arts Biennale has grown to encompass more than 80 national exhibitions across the Giardini and La Serenissima. This year, the Hong Kong pavilion features critically acclaimed artist...
