KACEY WONG:

Hello, I’m Kacey Wong, a contemporary visual artist. I think Hong Kong people will easily relate to this work, they might even say ‘Oh, it’s a subdivided room’!

PRESENTER:

This artwork, mimicking a subdivided room, common in Hong Kong, is titled ‘Paddling Home’; it’s a functional architectural sculpture. Kacey created it as a critique of Hong Kong’s spiralling property prices. He told us more about it.

KACEY WONG:

One of my artistic requirements is real functionality: it floats, its door and lock work, the doorbell rings, and there is even an earth god to worship. These surreal yet practical elements lead the audience into my story. I think this is a crucial part, the so-called ‘make believe’–whereas reality is filled with limitations and impossibilities.

PRESENTER:

Kacey trained as an architect but later switched to being an artist. He likes to use commonplace elements in his work; in ‘Paddling Home’, he incorporated familiar, local materials.

KACEY WONG:

There’s a phrase ‘vernacular architecture’ in architecture studies; it refers to an architectural style developed from original, local features. For instance, the stilt houses in Tai O, buildings in typhoon shelters, and those floating platforms held together with Styrofoam: these are all structures that exist before architectural intervention. They’re interesting local features, architectural aesthetics and functionality that have derived from everyday life. While making ‘Paddling Home’, I visited the typhoon shelter in Aberdeen and watched how the connecting boats operated and how people made that kind of floating boat. The plastic bucket and tyre in my work were inspired by this.

PRESENTER:

Kacey once used the work to drift across Victoria Harbour, and these themes of harbour and journey help ensure the piece still resonates today.

KACEY WONG:

The combination of boat and house into a boathouse symbolises the notion of journey. It can’t be fixed at one point; it can anchor here and there for short times, enjoying freedom. It’s not about a settled point, but a process, a journey. This is closely related to the collective history of Hong Kong people.

PRESENTER:

The history of Hong Kong is filled with stories of human movement: people fleeing to Hong Kong to seek refuge, and Hong Kong people heading abroad to study, work or emigrate. This sense of constant drifting, embodied by ‘Paddling Home’, underpins most stories you’ll find in Hong Kong.

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