Conjunctions And Disjunctions: Resonators At The Exhibition

Introductory Statement

Nearly 700 submissions. 129 reviewers. 140 artists. 4 locations. Like any large scale group exhibition, the challenge in curating ISEA Hong Kong was how to create a cohesive experience from such a profoundly diverse set of work. To begin, we attempted to situate the pieces within a framework of dialogues and confrontations, of responses and reflections. We were inspired here both by the “Conjunctions and Disjunctions” of Octavio Paz, and Italo Calvino’s “Six Memos for the Next Millenium”. In these works, Paz and Calvino explore the diversity of difference and its contribution to productive discourse. In similar fashion, we attempted to create dialogues between sets of works, with argument and refutations, point and counterpoint, all leading to some kind of compelling harmony, however dissonant at times. This strategic frame has, we hope, helped to bring the range of these works into some sort of order. The four locations of the exhibition (the Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre of City University, the School of Design at the Polytechnic University, the Chi Wah Learning Commons of the Hong Kong University and Connecting Spaces of the Zurich University of the Arts) each feature different applications of these conjunctions and disjunctions. The works of art and the four architectures equally serve in the broadest sense as ‘resonators’.