Visit 1 - Fotanian Open Studio visit

When I first hear artwork visit, what I come first in my mind is beauty and creative but failure to understand as well. Therefore, the Fotanian Open Studio visit on 19th January was just my first time to have a artwork visit (in spite of my interest on it) and "communication" with the artists through their artwork.

Although my perception of artwork is failure to understand the work, to my surprise, there are still quite a number of pieces of artwork are so impressive.

"Mutation" by Wendy Wu

It is of my very great impression that I found that this artwork "Mutation" is so resonated me. The artist of this piece of artwork, Wendy said that this was telling the story that a snack is transformed into a giraffe by removing the colorful skin. I am so impressed because it really suits me. Being a Catholic, I think people are so nice and "perfect" when they are born because we are just the "artwork" of God. However, because of difficulties of life, competition among people especially in our career, disappointment and even hurt from our beloved, we seems to understand more about the rules of our society and the world. Therefore, for the sake for self-protection, we may finally abandon our principles of life and become "less perfect" or even bad. I think that the colorful skin here means our self-protection and our masks.

We protect ourselves by playing the rules of game of the world which are so "beautiful" that everyone loved but false. It seems that everyday people are pretending---they say beautiful things, they cannot accept what they originally are but are pretending what everyone love (beautiful skin). However, what is important in this artwork is the removal of the colorful skin and become the one who we actually are, even it is not attractive. I think that it impressed me a lot because people in the University nowadays works very hard to wear these colorful skin while I, myself, am working hard to remove all my masks and find the real one of myself and establish my values of being kind and nice, being a good guys (becoming the giraffe.) I really love this piece of artwork because it share my lonely hardworking as it reflects my feeling because of the only one snack transform into giraffe and the feeling of lonely of the background color.

Another pieces of artwork is so impressed as well.

 "Who am I" by Chris Lau.

It is well known that Hong Kong people are so hardworking. However, these years, people works so hard that they do not have leisure, families, social life or even health. When asking myself who am I, my answer is that I am a Year 2 Computer Science students to be graduated soon and I have to work in IT industry in the future because it the career path is good, the salary is also attractive. However, to think deeply, all these are not actually who am I. All these value are taught by our society. "You must be graduated from the University." "You have to plan your career which gives you money" and so on. The situation can also be applied in the case of National Education which aims to strictly to teach the value of communism to our Hong Kong children--- to be a Chinese who are proud of the country no matter what the country did, but not to be a Chinese who have critical thinking.
As reflected by the artwork, the yellow one which is in the center is made of plastic means that they are not yet affected by those value. However, we can also see that the bottom of the centered one is not only plastic but also yellow paper, I think that they have already been slightly affected by the people that are surrounding it. I think the artist try to remind us to ask ourselves who am I so as to shock us that sometimes we do not actually know who I am and what we are doing; and remind us to always examinate ourselves. I agree with it so much because if I do not always examinate myself, I will surrendered to the rules of the world, as mentioned in the artwork "Mutation".

During the lesson, teacher said that artwork was originally made for religions and rich people.

However, I believe the reasons why artwork nowadays is still attractive is the communication with the artists. This kind of communication through artwork can share feeling like lonely, happiness, scare, and sometimes, it can also be the medicine of our sores and worries. At least, the lonely of transforming into a giraffe is lessened a lot!

What marvelous artwork!