"55 Squared" Project
@Tai Kwun from Dec 2020 to May 2021.
︎Click here for the interview video.
The mural Unfurling the scroll of space and time by the artist Cheng Hung forges an illusion of three-dimensionality and a spurious sense of time. While the artist imagines the mural as an unfurling scroll that endlessly exposes an empty room, her use of the colours of dusk suggests the passage of time between day and night.Inspired by the arched columns of Tai Kwun, Cheng in this large work perpetuates and extends such architectural forms, constructing a virtual and enigmatic space. The perspectival vanishing points in the scene fluctuate with the weather, creating an ambivalent zone of relation.
The work intentionally delimits the borders between space and time, detaching the viewer from reality. For instance, the artist paradoxically places a “window” that reveals the vanishing point of the infinite on the limiting boundary of the “wall.” Sometimes, “reality” and its boundaries can be indiscernible in our skewed perception.
Unfurling the scroll of space and time is Tai Kwun’s second commissioned work for “55 Squared”; the work was painted and composed by Cheng Hung, Chan Chun Hei, Lau Ka Chun, and Lau Hoi Nga Livy over ten days. “55 Squared” is jointly curated by Louiza Ho and David Chan.