Exhibition Introduction

This exhibition is about my mother Susan, a third-generation Chinese Indonesian born in Pontianak in 1962. It was quite precarious to be a Chinese in Indonesia when she was growing up. The government pursued a policy of assimilation and closed down Chinese schools. Her family was also forced to relocate from the countryside to Jakarta. In 1990, Susan married a local Hong Kong (HK) fisherman whom she met through a matchmaker. Together, they had two daughters before her passing in 2015. A decade has passed before the opening of this exhibition.

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During the 1980s and the 1990s, many Indonesian Chinese women saw HK as a dreamland. They believed that a transnational marriage with a HK man would allow them to move up the social ladder and escape from familial and societal issues back home. However, these relationships often involved underprivileged men in HK and might not turn out to be what they had imagined.

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A few years back, I started to learn the skills for making Canton porcelain. As a kind of chinaware made primarily for export to Europe and the United States, Canton porcelain symbolised the Chinese desire for a better life and reflected the Western fantasies of an Oriental paradise. In my work, I appropriate the forms and techniques of Canton porcelain by reinterpreting the traditional symbols of its iconography and juxtaposing them with my collection of family photographs. In this way, I draw a parallel between these Western fantasies of the Orient and the Southeast Asian Chinese women’s imaginations of HK and China.

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Family photographs typically depict a facade of happiness. While these snapshots capture the “that-has-been”, they do not always represent the full reality. The discrepancy between imagination and reality often leads to disappointment and hurt, which can be passed down through the generations. Dealing with these traumas requires us to break away from our obsession with beautiful symbols and to confront reality with courage. I do not speak Bahasa Indonesia and I seldom visit Indonesia; my impression of Susan can only be partial. By reliving her experiences through my artmaking, I gain a valuable opportunity to think about my own life. It is not a journey to “find roots” or excuses; I hope to understand how my thoughts and values have been shaped by family and migratory histories.

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展覽簡介

這是關於我母親蘇姍的展覽，她是第三代印尼華人，1962年出生於坤甸。在她成長的年代，印尼華人的生活充滿了不確定性。政府實施同化政策，並關閉華校。她的家人也被迫從鄉下遷移至雅加達。1990年，蘇珊透過媒人介紹，與一名香港漁民結婚，並育有兩個女兒。她於2015年過世，距此次展覽開幕已過十年。

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在八十和九十年代，許多印尼華裔女性將香港視為夢想之地。她們深信，透過與香港男子的跨國婚姻，她們的社會地位將被提升，並藉此擺脫原生家庭和社會的困境。然而，因為這些婚姻關係所涉及的香港男性往往來自弱勢群體，其結果未必是她們所想像的那樣。

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幾年前，我開始學習製作廣州彩繪瓷器的技術。廣彩作為一種出口歐美的瓷器，體現了中國人對美好生活的渴望，也反映了西方對於東方樂園的幻想。在我的作品中，我借用廣彩的形式和技藝，重新詮釋它的傳統圖像和符號，並與我收藏的家庭照並置，以此比照西方對東方世界的想像，和東南亞華裔女性對香港、中國的幻像。

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​家庭照呈現的往往是一種表面的幸福。雖然家庭照記錄了「此曾在」的時光和事物，它們並不代表現實的全部。想像與現實之間的落差容易導致失落與創傷，並可能世代遺傳。要處理這些創傷就需要擺脫對美好符號的沈溺，勇敢面對現實。我不會說印尼話，也很少去印尼；我對蘇珊的認識只是片面的。透過藝術創作重溫她的經歷，我獲得一次思考自己人生的寶貴機會。這不是「尋根」或找尋藉口的旅程，我希望釐清家庭和移民史如何影響我的思想和價值觀。

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Curatorial Note

Yang Hoi Mei’s mother passed away suddenly in 2015. To heal herself from the loss, Yang turned to her artmaking, which led to her first solo exhibition in 2018. The exhibition helped Yang address her conflicted emotions towards her mother and let go of her sense of guilt. After the exhibition, Yang thought she had moved on from the tragic event. However, as she looked through her collection of family photographs and continued to learn more about her mother’s life, Yang realised she would never understand her completely. Born in Pontianak in 1962, Yang’s mother followed the well-trodden path of Chinese women from her village who left for Taiwan or Hong Kong (HK) in search of a husband who would uplift their economic status. She arrived in HK in 1990 and, through the help of her cousin who was a matchmaker, married a local man from a fishing family. Forced to leave their boat and move ashore when he was a kid, his family was severed from their generational connection to the sea; it was a micro history that unfolded within the celebrated transformation of HK from a fishing enclave to a thriving metropolis. Unfortunately, their marriage did not last. 
 

A few years back, Yang started to learn the craft and history of Canton porcelain. In the Canton porcelain, Yang sees the perfect embodiment of the intersecting desires between the Middle Kingdom and the West since the Qing dynasty. In this exhibition, Yang appropriates the forms and symbols of Canton porcelain and combines them with images taken from her family photographs to create new pieces of chinaware. It is an attempt to narrate another possibility to her mother’s life. The speed and candid appearance of family snapshots interface the slowness and demand for control in making Canton porcelain, giving Yang the time and space to consider her mother’s experiences from a broader perspective. She began to see the connections between her mother’s life and the experiences of other Indonesian Chinese women who migrated to HK for various reasons.

 

In this exhibition, Yang expands the scope of her artmaking by unpacking the effects of family life, personal desires, identity politics, and the patriarchy in society, which shaped the decisions and experiences of her mother and her Indonesian Chinese friends in HK. 
In the exhibition space, there is a round table that recalls the wedding banquet. Most of the porcelain pieces on the table visualise the idealistic imaginations of marriage life, which compelled Yang’s mother to leave Indonesia for HK. Her fascination for HK was fuelled by popular movies that the colonial city once exported to Southeast Asia. However, her dreams were shattered when she realised that her choice of men in HK was extremely limited; Yang visualises the three potential partners whom the matchmaker introduced to her mother in three of the porcelain plates. In the other half of the exhibition space, Yang sets up a few pedestals with porcelain pieces inlaid into their surfaces. The porcelain pieces feature portraits of women from different generations within Yang’s extended family. Yang connects the pedestals with cotton strings, which visualise the blood ties of these women, but the installation also hints at the friction that existed within the family and points to the passing down of trauma through the generations. There is also a fishing net in one corner of the space, with butterflies trapped in it, or scattered below. Somehow, these seemingly lifeless butterflies remind us of the moths that hurl themselves hopefully into the burning light.

楊海美的母親於2015年突然過世。事後，楊氏透過藝術創作試圖療癒自己，並於2018年舉辦首次個展。她通過籌備展覽的過程處理對母親的矛盾情緒，並釋放自己的罪惡感。展覽結束後，楊氏以為自己已從悲傷中走出來。然而，當楊氏翻閱自己收藏的家庭照，並試圖進一步了解母親時，她意識到自己將永遠無法完全理解她。楊氏的母親於1962年出生坤甸（在1962年出生於印尼坤甸），家鄉的華裔女性大多都會前往台灣或香港尋找一位能夠提升她們經濟地位的好老公，她後來也選擇了這條路。1990年，她來到香港，當媒人的表親給她介紹當地一名來自漁民家庭的男子，當他還小的時候，家族就被迫離開船上生活搬到岸上，家人與大海的世世代代關係就此被斬斷，這亦見證了香港從漁村發展到繁華都會的過程中所平行展開的一段小歷史。不幸的是，他們的婚姻未能歷久不衰。 

幾年前，楊氏開始鑽研廣州彩繪瓷器（簡稱「廣彩」）的工藝和歷史。她認為廣彩完美地體現中國與西方自清朝以來相互交織的慾望。這次展覽，楊借用廣彩的形式和符號，並與她的家庭照片進行拼湊，創作出新式的陶瓷作品。楊氏嘗試利用作品為母親的人生尋找另一種敘事的可能。家庭抓拍照的速度和無修飾感，與製作廣彩製作所需的耐性和細節控制相結合，為楊氏換取時間和空間，以更寬廣的角度思考母親的經歷。她開始意識到，母親的人生和因爲各種原因移居香港的印尼華裔女性的經歷之間有著相似之處。楊氏透過這次展覽延伸藝術實踐的關注範圍，試圖梳理原生家庭、個人慾望、身份政治和父權社會如何影響母親，與她在香港的印尼華裔友人之選擇和經歷。

放置在展覽空間的圓桌讓人聯想到婚宴的場景。桌上大部分的陶瓷作品描繪了人們對婚姻生活的理想景象，這亦是楊氏的母親選擇離開印尼移居香港的主要動力。她對香港的嚮往源自這座前殖民城市曾出口到東南亞的暢銷電影。然而，當她意識到自己在香港所能夠選擇的男人是極其有限時，她的夢想破滅了；楊氏在三片瓷碟上勾勒了媒人向母親介紹的三個潛在伴侶對象之類型。在展間的另一邊，楊氏擺設了一組表面鑲嵌了由她所製作的瓷片的方几，這些瓷器片上印有楊氏的延伸大家族中不同世代的女性肖像。楊氏用棉線將方几連接起來，以呈現她們的血緣關係，但是這組裝置也暗示了家庭內部所存在的摩擦，並指向創傷的世代遺傳代代相傳的創傷。空間的一角還懸掛著一綑漁網，有蝴蝶被困在裡頭，或散落地面。這些看似毫無生機的蝴蝶，不禁讓我們想起那些曾經充滿希望撲向燃燒光芒燈火的飛蛾。

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關於策展人 Curator Biography

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莊吳斌

身為撰稿人，莊吳斌的工作涵蓋影像、出版和展覽。他關注東南亞和香港的攝影實踐如何與現代性、殖民主義、國族主義、「中華性」和冷戰產生關連性。莊吳斌於2010年獲荷蘭克勞斯親王基金頒發研究補助金，並於2017年獲頒新加坡圖書館李光前研究基金，2018年更獲得香港何鴻毅家族基金中華研究獎助金計劃的資助 。他曾獲多個機構邀請參與駐場研究計劃，當中包括印尼萬隆科技大學（2013年）、香港亞洲藝術文獻庫（2015及2018年），以及台灣關渡美術館（2017年）。莊亦是清邁攝影節的客座策展人（2015、2017及2020年）。2016年由新加坡國立大學出版社出版的《東南亞攝影概論》是莊的第四本出版物。

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本計劃由香港藝術發展局資助
Supported by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council

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