Tai Kwun Conversations: Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III A Dialogue with Curators

Tai Kwun Conversations: Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III A Dialogue with Curators

Date & Time

9 Dec 2022 7pm – 8:30pm

Location

JC Cube

Price

Exclusive to Tai Kwun Fan, Free of charge

General

Join our upcoming edition of Tai Kwun Conversations for a special preview of the exhibition Myth Makers — Spectrosynthesis III. We will hear the curators Inti Guerrero and Chantal Wong talk about Myth Makers and some of the curatorial themes presented, together with Tobias Berger, Curator-at-large of Tai Kwun and Anita Chung, Head of Heritage of Tai Kwun.  

The conversation will begin with a response to the current Heritage exhibition at Tai Kwun, Gender & Space, which resolves around the rediscovery of histories and traditions in order to create new spaces for dialogue. Inti Guerrero and Chantal Wong will then discuss the “new traditions” of our times, of spectacle and celebrity, playful and/or transgressive, along with non-normative bodily practices and histories in artworks by contemporary artists in Myth Makers.

Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III is one of the first major survey exhibitions on LGBTQ+ perspectives in Hong Kong, and draws inspiration from artists addressing “queer mythologies”—who highlight either same-sex love and desire or gender fluidity as found in ancient belief systems and traditions in Asia.

Mythologies often shape foundational narratives and are the cosmological matrix that gives symbolic meaning to “normalized” forms of being in the world. What happens when one encounters a queer mythology? Or a queer antiquity: a way to unlearn gender and sexual binaries, so that one may imagine a past and present where love, sexuality, and desire are approached in a multiplicity of forms? These questions form a starting point for Myth Makers, alongside to understand myth making as a way of defining queer life, and queer artistic communities in particular, as micro-worlds of misfits who have invented their own mythologies through practice across different time periods, long before public manifestations of LGBTQ+ identities have been possible as they are today.

Tai Kwun Conversations is a monthly event that brings together brilliant minds from the fields of contemporary art, architecture, heritage, among many others. Join us to discover new artistic exchanges and outstanding practices in heritage conservation.

This event will be conducted in English, with English to Cantonese simultaneous interpretation.

Speakers:

Inti Guerrero | Curator of Myth Makers — Spectrosynthesis III
Chantal Wong | Curator of Myth Makers — Spectrosynthesis III
Anita Chung | Head of Heritage, Tai Kwun

Moderator:

Tobias Berger | Curator-at-large, Tai Kwun 

The event will adhere to the latest health and safety regulations and enforce social distancing measures.


Speakers Bio

Inti Guerrero
Chantal Wong

Independent curator and art historian, Inti Guerrero has curated exhibitions across Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He was the artistic Director of bap - bellas artes projects in the Philippines (2018-2022), the Estrellita B. Brodsky Adjunct Curator at Tate, London (2016-2020), curator of the 38th EVA International, Limerick (2018) and Artistic Director of TEOR/éTica, San Jose. He has also curated or co-curated the exhibitions: ‘Institute for Tropical and Galactical Studies’ in Yokohama Triennale 2020, Yokohama Museum of Art; ‘Ming Wong. Your Special Island’ at the CCP Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila (2019); ‘Soil and Stones, Souls and Songs’ (touring at MCAD, Manila, Para Site, Hong Kong, and Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok, 2016-2017); ‘Udlot-Udlot: on Jose Maceda’ at Asia Art Archive (2016);  ‘Afterwork’ (touring at Para Site, Hong Kong; and ILHAM, Kuala Lumpur, 2016-2017); ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’ (touring at Para Site, Hong Kong; The Cube, Taipei; Arko Art Center, Seoul; and Kadist Art Foundation and The Lab, San Francisco; 2013-2015). He has edited and contributed his writing to numerous books, magazines, and exhibition catalogues and has taught and lectured at different universities, art academies, and institutions across the world. Recently, he was named co-Artistic Director of the upcoming 24th Biennale of Sydney (2024).

Chantal Wong is the co-founder of three charities in Hong Kong: Learning Together, empowering refugee and asylum seeker youth to take on leadership through access to education, scholarships, and leadership training; Women’s Festival, a platform promoting gender awareness and equality through public discourse; and Things That Can Happen (2014-2017), an art space that explored the role of art in society. She is a Ford Global Fellow, a global community working to combat inequality brought together by the Ford Foundation. Until recently she was the Director of Culture at Eaton in Hong Kong, a purpose-driven hospitality brand where she led a culture and programming team to transform the property into a champion for creativity, artistic experimentation and safe-space for intersectional and marginal communities. Prior to this she worked with Asia Art Archive, a research centre and archive of modern and contemporary art from Asia as head of strategy helping to build up an invaluable resource for the (re)writing of histories with post-colonial perspectives from the region.