Meniscus, meniscus's link
24-5-2013
written by Chan Yuan-kwan
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Technology, an ever-deepening well of
information access and other factors have simultaneously made life both easier
and more difficult to manage. When time is of the essence, having a ready-made
package for sustenance proves to be convenient to save precious minutes…and
restrictive in terms of adding nutritional variety to one’s day.
Local artist Kwok-Hin Tang (鄧國騫) explores the idea of compartmentalization in his
latest works showcased at Art Basel Hong Kong 2013. Whether serving as the gift
wrapping for supermarket-purchased ingredients or holding the contents of
takeaway provisions, Tang piles the outer shells of our fuel into even more
constricted transparent cases, barely giving them space to breathe. The ability
to, literally, think outside the box when the necessities of life have
themselves become mundane serves as a warning of what happens when one allows
routine to descend into ennui. The packaging starts to look vaguely similar,
and a part of the day that could provide enjoyment has become a means to take a
mandatory pit stop, refuel and motor on. Nowhere is this more apparent than in
“Oven,” a clear plastic cabinet that contains a cube of neatly stacked packages
previously containing foods that can only be consumed after they are heated up
in its namesake.
This is not the first time that Tang has
explored the idea of food packaging as societal commentary. Last year, he
created his work “Garden” (嘉頓) – in a similar
aesthetic to “Oven” – after consuming nothing but heated packaged food produced
by a company with the same name, accompanied by manufactured soft drinks the
whole time. In “Coke” (可樂, 2008), Tang spent a week to scrape
out all the red color from a Coca-Cola can, the drained results still showing
an eerie corporate logo and lettering despite the hollowed-out shell.
