Freezing Water & Love Letters

May 30, 2023

- R. Buckminster Fuller

I was in Tsim Sha Tsui one weekend when I decided to visit the HKMOA, also known as the HK Museum of Art, because I felt that staring at the harbor skyline would just be boring. I had initially assumed that there was an admission fee, but to my surprise, everyone is welcome to enter the museum for free, except those who are viewing commissioned art exhibitions. Aside from the gallery that required an admission fee, there were three main galleries in this museum. As I entered the museum, the first gallery that caught my attention, located on the first exhibition floor was the Love Letter, containing everlasting sentiments from Xubhaizai Collection.

Prior to entering the main gallery, I passed by a dark corridor leading to a dark chamber and the cinematic scene of the Freezing Water interplayed on the white wall in the dark chamber truly drew my attention to everyone entering the room. It's a projected art installation by Tsang Kin-Wah, a Chinese artist who's into wallpaper art.

The art installation shows black and white images and an unrecognizable high and low-pitched sound. This was created to allow viewers to become aware of their inner thoughts and emotional change. But as I stared intently at it, I immediately thought of the pollution such a disaster would cause. Simply because I was reminded of the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda by the scattered debris, destroyed homes, and floating objects in the river.

It started with a scene of a peaceful village wherein houses and trees are still complete, and the river is clean and still. After a flock of birds flew by, the screen went black. The following scene was a terrible one with no sign of any living creatures, but only a wrecked place. Houses and trees are all ruined with some fire burning other parts of the village, and other objects littering the river that become contaminated. The thin smoke becoming thicker and thicker to black color further deepened my reflection on these things which depict disaster, havoc, pollution, volcanic eruption, and a desolate place that happens in real life. It ended with a scene where black thick smoke covered the whole place then the whole scene disappeared.

This truly provoked deep feelings and emotions concerning different things about nature, devastation, and real-world pollution, even about life. And with my personal experience being a survivor of devastation, it was heartbreaking to see a peaceful place turn wreckage in just one quick snap. One moment all things were fine, the next moment was already a horrible state. The provoking image flashed a lot of memories in my mind, along with the traumatic experience we had back then.

For me, this isn't just about discovering inner feelings and emotions, but raising awareness about a more serious case happening in this world about nature's destruction, and how humans should do their part in taking care of it. And we should value nature just like how we value our life, for the benefit of the next generations as well. I hope everyone seeing this exhibition will realize it as well.

I proceeded to the connecting room where the Love Letter exhibition was held. The gallery houses different displays of calligraphy, poetry, and paintings by different Chinese artists from the Xubaizhai Collection. Different letters in different forms show expressions about family, friendship, teacher-student bonds, patriotism, and other relationships connecting past and present. Alongside were paintings by different artists, all of which show eternal emotions.

A bronze life-sized statue of Low Chuck Tiew is located in this gallery. He was the main collector of all the calligraphy and paintings displayed in this gallery. Instead of selling all his collections, he donated them to the HKMOA to preserve the national treasures within the Chinese community.

Because of his unselfish donations and passion for preserving cultural relics, people have a chance to see and appreciate those valuable artworks.

You can check my post about City Rhymes which is also one of the museum's exhibitions. Calligraphy lovers would love City Rhymes.

Thanks for stopping by.

(All photos are mine)

You can also reach me on my socials and let's be connected:

•Facebook
•YouTube
•Twitter
•noise.app
•read.cash

For the best experience view this post on Liketu