Presented across two venues in Hong Kong, the exhibition includes existing and newly commissioned works as well as site-specific interventions by 24 artists, offering a multi-layered experience that responds to the fluid concept of ‘curtain’. The exhibition makes artistic and conceptual references to passages, frontiers, separations, connections, occupations, circulations, and localities by drawing upon the mundane materiality of the curtain as a domestic object and its scenographic functions in various cultural contexts, and exploring its qualities of porosity and opacity and its contemporary adaptations in electronic devices. Conceived as a framework to disrupt our usual habits of consuming visual culture, the exhibition also activates the viewer’s senses through acts of crawling into, lifting, peeking through, being guided by smell and sound, or that of reading, writing, and feeling a space.
Many artworks in the exhibition subtly unveil forgotten histories and raise critical questions in the age of surveillance by examining the production of the image and its instrumentalization in social media, science, art, and political regimes as seen in newspapers and photographic documents. In addition to exploring issues related to the visible and invisible in technology platforms and social structures today, other works look at smaller-scale ecologies and cultures on the periphery of the mainstream, attempting to understand the interdependence of different localities and the importance of transnational exchange from overlooked perspectives. In yet other artworks, “curtain” not only serves as the physical partition in the exhibition space, but expands into the discussion of technology and the boundary of the screen. As people become more dependent on digital devices, the relationship between humanity and the world has also experienced a major shift, with digital devices becoming the main means for humans to learn about the world and themselves. Many of the works also focus on the performative dynamic between individual and collective forms of identity, and deepen the inquiry into how humanity perceives and differentiates the Other from oneself. For the practitioners featured in Curtain, each work represents a retracing of memories or a path beyond the future, with the anticipation to influence informational infrastructures that govern or haunt a post-COVID-19 pandemic world.
Due to the pandemic situation and social distancing safety measures, other performative and collective learning events will be planned for a post-pandemic future. As a continuation of the CURTAIN project, Club Mimosa Symposia, a gathering of convergent interests and partners in the value of thinking about art, will take place in Singapore in February 2022.
横跨两个展场，“帘幕”将呈现24名艺术家的新旧作品以及于场域特定的艺术介入，并透过丰富的层次回应展览主题的流动概念。“帘幕”从日常生活中的物件，到不同文化语境中的佈景；从作为通风遮光的布帘，到作为当代电子设备的屏幕，它的变迁为展览赋予了通道、边界、区隔、连接、佔领、流通、地域等丰富的艺术和观念意蕴。展览旨在干预视觉文化消费的诸多的旧习，并透过爬行、移动、窥视、嗅闻、聆听、阅读、书写、感觉等行动，为观众开启新的空间感知。
展览中的部分创作透过审视报章、摄影中图像生产以及其于社交媒体、科学、艺术及政治领域的运用，细腻地讲述被遗忘的历史，并提出一系列关于监控时代的批判性问题。在探索科技平台及社会架构的可见与不可见之外，另一批作品将视线投向处于主流边缘的小型生态及文化，并试图釐清不同地域间的共生关係，从被忽略的视角出发，理解跨国交流的重要性。展览内，部分艺术家不仅将“帘幕”视为现实空间内的区隔，更将它看作电子屏幕的界限，人们对电子设备的愈发依赖使他们与世界的关係亦随之剧变，而电子设备亦逐步成为人认识世界及自我的主要途径。展览中的其他作品则聚焦于个人与集体身分间的动态表演，从而深入探问人如何辨别“他者”以及将其与自身区分。“帘幕”之内，我们或追溯记忆，或瞭望未来，希冀能够介入、干扰这规训且萦绕著后疫情世界的信息系统。
鉴于当前疫情期间大家需要保持社交距离，其他原定的表演和公共教育项目将在疫情缓解后择机举行。作为研究项目“帘幕”的延续，“含羞草俱乐部研讨会”将于2022年2月在新加坡举办，邀请同心同志的合作者和伙伴们一起相聚线下。
