In the ICAS11, I convened a panel Our Commoning Practices in Turmoil: A Comparative Account of Hong Kong and Taiwan and presented a paper titled “Acts of Commoning: From Public Space to Public Sphere.”
Panel: Our Commoning Practices in Turmoil: A Comparative Account of Hong Kong and Taiwan
After sharing a collective experience of occupation during the Umbrella Movement (UM), and public space has inevitably become a battlefield in civil movements, especially there are increasing signs of shrinking freedom of assembly, speech and press in Hong Kong. At the same time, the rights to public space in the city have been threatened by increasing municipal regulations and interdiction. Street performances, for example, are restricted in the name of public order or noise control. In the post-UM times, artists in Hong Kong have developed various tactics to engage the public through different kinds of participation. While some continue their socially engaged practices and working intensively with local communities, some develop projects to explore the forgotten parts in Hong Kong. In these social practices, artists have extended their focus from reclaiming public space in the past to enriching public sphere through various creative and performative means. In their socially engaged projects, artists create discursive spaces which not only facilitate dialogues and/or rational deliberation, but also enable emotional or affective exchange through aesthetic experiences. This paper traces this shift and study a few examples of socially engaged projects. Reflecting upon her own related experience, I also seek to investigate the possibilities and dilemmas of commoning practices of contemporary art.
Convenor/Chair:
wen yau, Independent Artist/Researcher
Panelists:
Zito Tseng, Co-founder, archipiélago and PanSex
wen yau, Independent Artist/Researcher
Daniel C. Tsang, Honorary Research Fellow in Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong
Lee Tzu-Tung, Conceptual artist; Co-founder, Overseas Taiwanese Taiwanese for Democracy
Discussant:
Dr Anson Mak, Associate Professor, Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University
Abstract of Paper: Acts of Commoning: From Public Space to Public Sphere
After sharing a collective experience of occupation during the Umbrella Movement (UM), and public space has inevitably become a battlefield in civil movements, especially there are increasing signs of shrinking freedom of assembly, speech and press in Hong Kong. At the same time, the rights to public space in the city have been threatened by increasing municipal regulations and interdiction. Street performances, for example, are restricted in the name of public order or noise control. In the post-UM times, artists in Hong Kong have developed various tactics to engage the public through different kinds of participation. While some continue their socially engaged practices and working intensively with local communities, some develop projects to explore the forgotten parts in Hong Kong. In these social practices, artists have extended their focus from reclaiming public space in the past to enriching public sphere through various creative and performative means. In their socially engaged projects, artists create discursive spaces which not only facilitate dialogues and/or rational deliberation, but also enable emotional or affective exchange through aesthetic experiences. This paper traces this shift and study a few examples of socially engaged projects. Reflecting upon her own related experience, I also seek to investigate the possibilities and dilemmas of commoning practices of contemporary art.
(my participation in ICAS11 was made possible with the support of Hong Kong Kong Arts Development Council.)
this panel was part of the ICAS11 (Session 358, 18/8/2019, 14:45-16:30) at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, 15-19 July 2019.