Until the Mountain is covered by the Snow

Tung Pang Lam's MFA Defence
Friday, July 26, 2024 | 10:30 AM
Room 4390 – 149 W. Hastings St., Vancouver

Growing up in 90s and aesthetically and philosophically inspired by East meets West Art Education led by a group of New Confucians exile in British Hong Kong, my practice is an ongoing negotiation of the overlapping city-state’s reality and coincides with drastic social changes of Hong Kong over 30 years. It’s a result of my homeland’s decolonisation from constitutional monarchy and allegiance to both British and China in a short span of time. By reviewing my diaries after I left Hong Kong to Vancouver, Canada in 2022 and reflection by the Chinese writers in exile Yang Lian and Gao Xingjian in conversation, I am asking how this self-exile experience changes the way I see my relationship to the land/home, and how this transformed my thoughts on the idea of “landscape”. Taking “Mountain de-bonding” as an example, how this piece is changed from its original plan to the realization in Vancouver.

Keywords: self-exile, Hong Kong diaspora, landscape, Shan Shui, transnational