Small Acts / New Flows: A Public Gathering

Name: Small Acts / New Flows: A Public Gathering
Start: 2024-09-29T13:00:00+08:00
End: 2024-09-29T18:00:00+08:00
Location: Rayson Huang Theatre, The University of Hong Kong

Date: Sep 29, 2024
Time: 1:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Venue

Rayson Huang Theatre, The University of Hong Kong

Visual Design｜平面設計：MAJO

Small Acts / New Flows

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How can the arts participate in developing practices and cultures of sustainable worlding within the context of global capitalism and its attendant crises?

Small Acts / New Flows: A Public Gathering invites audiences to hear from and engage with facilitators and participants from two interconnected programs hosted at Para Site in September and October 2024: The Alternative School: Small Acts, a four-week artist-led syllabus of public workshops focusing on ecology, and Workshops for Emerging Arts Professionals: New Flows, a week-long series of closed-door exchanges on the politics and ethics of institutional labour and sustainability in the arts.

Taking small steps as actions that embody the common saying, the only way out is through, Yip Kai Chun will introduce the Inter-Island Festival (Hong Kong), reflecting on what forms an alternative school can take, while participants from the Workshops for Emerging Arts Professionals will offer their reflections of what an arts ecosystem is and could be. Bridging both programs are two roundtables with Alternative School and Workshop facilitators. First, BOLOHO (Guangzhou), Chloe Lai of Urban Diary (Hong Kong), and Lo Lai Lai Natalie and Zimu Zhang of Wanwu Practice Group (Hong Kong), will discuss planting as a form of placemaking that resonates with the collecting of community stories. Then, Wayla Amatathammachad of Prayoon for Art Foundation (Thailand), Sahar Qawasmi and Renad Shqeirat of Sakiya (Palestine), and Niko Leung and Kevin Lin of Hong Kong Soil by TMML Studio (Hong Kong), will consider how land and water are shaping counter-models for co-existence today.

Closing the day, Vincci Mak (Hong Kong), Senior Lecturer in the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, will offer closing remarks, while inviting audience members to offer their own closing reflections via open mic.

English to Cantonese simultaneous interpretation will be available through the day, with Putonghua/Cantonese to English available for the first roundtable.

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Schedule

13:00-13:05

Audience arrival and registration

13:05-13:10

Introductions

13:10-13:25

Proposition: What Is an Alternative School?

Speaker: Yip Kai Chun (Inter-Island Festival, Hong Kong)

13:25-15:15

Roundtable: Planting Seeds: Placemaking and Storytelling

Speakers: BOLOHO (Guangzhou); Chloe Lai (Urban Diary, Hong Kong); Lo Lai Lai Natalie and Zimu Zhang (Wanwu Practice Group, Hong Kong). (Simultaneous Interpretation: Cantonese-Putonghua-English)

How does growing plants in the community cultivate a sense of collective identity, and how does this relate to the act of storytelling as both an individual and collective act of memory making? How do both practices of planting and relating contribute to modes of sustainable placemaking? Artist collectives and groups share their thoughts based on their collaborative engagement with each other and their publics.

15:15–15:30

Break

15:30-15:45

Proposition: What is an Arts Ecosystem? A Workshop Response

15:45-17:30

Roundtable: Between Land and Water: Art from the Ground Up

Speakers: Wayla Amatathammachad (Prayoon for Art Foundation, Thailand); Sahar Qawasmi and Renad Shqeirat (Sakiya, Palestine); Niko Leung and Kevin Lin (Hong Kong Soil by TMML Studio, Hong Kong).

How are institutions and studios developing models of artistic and creative praxis that integrate ideas of rooting, grounding, and flow, through their work in and around land and water? Based on the practical experiences of each speaker and the institutions they have been developing from the ground up, this discussion considers how small acts have generated new ways of working together, and what models are developing in the process.