Para Site is delighted to present a screening programme in the expanded space on the 10/F, complementary to ‘signals…here and there’, our current group exhibition curated by Billy Tang and Celia Ho. 

The screening programme serves as an extension of  ‘signals…here and there’, featuring films that highlight human experiences across different times and spaces. Through revisiting past works, archival footage, and memories by reappropriation, reactivation, and reinterpretation, the programme explores the connection between individuals, the interplay of belonging and disappearance in collective memories, and the encounters that shape our lives. 

The programme commences with the screening of 10957 Moons & 30 Elliptical Years (2022) by Linda Chiu-han Lai, and Novel Pleasure (2023) by James Richards. 

Lai’s film is a collage of events, objects, thoughts, and sensations that reflect upon the passage of time, memory, and the shifting urban landscape on both personal and collective levels. It is divided into eight chapters, each representing a distinct aspect of Lai’s artistic journey spanning several decades. From naturalistic camera images captured in daylight to more introspective fragments that embody unspeakable sentiments, the film occasionally pays tribute to nature while quietly contemplating the formation of its systems. By using experimental documentary techniques that resemble visual poetry, the film offers a unique perspective on the human condition and the intricacies that characterise different states of being.

For Novel Pleasure, Richards has compiled a highly personal ‘showreel’ from favourite excerpts of earlier work, a recently produced video, and new experiments that shed light on future directions in his practice. The moving image and installation work of James Richards often relies on material culled from found footage in home videos, books, records, collaborations, raw material, and online streams, combined with the artist’s personal archive. The experimental images and sounds are reworked into a flow of ambient textures. Richards adapts this process to explore a new emotional charge (or dimension) to the material, either filmed by the artist or appropriated from other sources. Tracing unlikely rhythmic or gestural connections between heterogeneous materials, Richards’s interest lies in the possibility of personal expression or ownership amidst an infinite sea of images.

The films are screened Wednesdays to Sundays on the hour starting from 30 August 2023 with the following schedule:

Linda Chiu-han Lai, 10957 Moons & 30 Elliptical Years (2022)
13:00, 15:00, 17:00

James Richards, Novel Pleasure (2023)
12:00, 14:00, 16:00, 18:00