Rapid urban advancement and the drudgery of everyday life occur in a dialogue with nature, though that dialogue may seem rather lopsided: as our cities continue to grow, they encroach ever further upon the dwindling natural environments surrounding them. For many, this creates a sense of nostalgia for a time that saw greater equilibrium between humans and the natural realm. Such yearning often translates to lamentations at the current state of our planet’s environmental health and denies our continued connection to nature. The Hong Kong Arts Development Council’s (HKADC’s) recent art exhibition Fill in the Blanks highlighted the interconnectedness between our everyday urban lives and the natural world, by exploring our negativity at the loss of nature and the sense of yearning we feel to return to it.

Fill in the Blanks (October 21–November 11, 2023) is part of the HKADC’s series ARTS TECH Exhibition 2.0, and is made up of four large-scale video works shown on the screens of the Sino LuminArt Façade in Tsimshatsui East. The contributing artist and curator Ng Tsz-kwan invited multidisciplinary artists Tap Chan, Ivy Ma and Zheng Bo to create works that responded to the relationship between the human and natural realms, and the emotional responses that their dynamics evoke. Ng is a new media artist who creates abstract digital landscapes through a blend of photography and digital art. Meanwhile, Chan combines installation art, video art and sculpture art to explore the veil between fiction and reality, and Zheng’s practice lies at the intersection of drawing, dance and film to speculate on an “emergent planetary indigeneity” that wishes to establish genuine equality between plants and people, within political and sexual dimensions. Lastly, Ma is a mixed media artist who works with painting, photography and installation art. While her practice is deeply introspective, recently she has also begun to consider a dialogue between society and history.

The exhibition presents contrasting similarities and differences between the works on display. Take, for example, Ma’s The Speech of Animals and Plants (2023), and Zheng’s Bloom by the Sea (2023). The former explores the movements of humans and animals, as observed on the shoreline from the boats Ma has travelled on as part of her daily commute for many years. Meanwhile, the latter explores our relationship with nature within an urban space. Discussing the dynamics between these works, Ng tells STIR: “Both artists focus on capturing the nature and environment surrounding their living spaces, but they approach their works in distinct ways. Ma's artistic process revolves around her daily life, where she spontaneously captures photos or videos of what she encounters as a routine. Her approach is highly intuitive, often driven by simple reasons or impulses. On the other hand, Zheng takes a contrasting approach. They are acutely aware of the message they want to convey and plan out their pieces meticulously before creating any images.”

Ng mentions that he tries to strike a balance between his curatorial direction and the voices of the artists he works with. He avoids what he sees as excessive interference with their creative processes, but will often provide a subtle point of reference, to contain drifts from a curatorial theme. In Ng’s words, “It is during this process of drifting that the most poetic moments often arise.”

Coming to Ng’s work for Fill in the Blanks, his piece Lost and Found (2023) criticises the decluttering movement that arose through the super-stardom of professional organiser Marie Kondo, and her message of tidying up one’s home and giving up non-essential possessions as a means of detachment. Lost and Found highlights our unavoidable connection with our possessions, arguing that a spiritual attachment between owner and object will persist, even if that object is discarded, changes hands or is destroyed totally. As the curatorial note tells us, even if we dump our possessions in the ocean, that will not be their final resting place. Time and sedimentation will lead to our discarded articles absorbing the very essence of nature, until one day they shall transcend the earthly realm through total material breakdown, becoming, as Ng sees it, ethereal. Such a premise may prompt one to wonder how this work factors in the existence of digital possessions, which Ng sheds light on, telling STIR: “In our present time, many of our belongings have become digitised yet, paradoxically, we are also accumulating an increasing number of single-use items. As a result, the connection between humans and their possessions is becoming increasingly tenuous. It has become challenging for us to form emotional attachments to information and data. A prime example of this is the physical printed photograph.”

The artist and curator continues, "In my work Lost and Found, I engage in personal rituals aimed at re-establishing a connection with physical artefacts. Through these rituals, I seek to bridge the gap between our fragmented relationship with possessions, and cultivate a renewed sense of attachment.”

Beyond the space of the exhibition, Fill in the Blanks also included Resonant Harbour: A Speculative Water Tour, which was a guided audiovisual tour by boat of the Hong Kong harbour that blended history with fiction. The tour was led by the theatre practitioner Lai Sim-fong and her team, who specialise in theatre that is grounded in data collection and research. The team was accompanied by the multidisciplinary artist Shane Aspegren, who added a soundscape to their visuals, transporting audiences to a fantastic, parallel world. Through both these offerings, the HKADC has provided audiences with an opportunity to reassess the dynamics between our urban lives and the nature that is all around us, as well as a unique perspective on Hong Kong’s own relationship to the sea that it rests upon.