In the Performance Studies International (PSi#24) conference, I presented a paper titled Art & Civil Society:
Performing Resilience in the face of Populism and Authoritarian regime.
Abstact of Paper:
After the pro-democracy Occupy/Umbrella Movement (2014), Hong Kong’s civil society has inevitably been devitalized by the PRC’s tightened grip. This paper investigates some of the performative tactics that artists develop to critically engage the public and strengthen the development of civil society in the face an increasingly authoritarian regime in Hong Kong. These performative practices both offer an efficacious frame-work to engage the community affectively and address social problems in a critical manner. By facilitating people’s critical and imaginative understanding of the current sociopolitical situations and possible resilient civil actions, these practices also give antidotes to populist sensationalism.
2014年的爭取民主普選的佔領運動被清場後，中共政府收緊管治，香港的公民社會不免被打壓。本論文探討在香港愈趨威權的管治下，藝術家如何以一些展演性對策，以省思連結大眾，促進公民社會發展。這些展演性實踐不只奏效地以情感連結社群，更以批判方式處理社會問題透過――孕育省思及想像，加深大家對當下社會政治處境的認識，並鼓勵以柔韌的公民行動，對抗民粹主義的煽情效果。
the paper was presented in Performance Studies International conference, PSi#25: Elasticity, 4-7/7/2019, at University of Calgary, Canada