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CASINO
Elva Lai’s impulse for the work “Casino” was her reflection on the feeling at the moment of a border crossing. Like playing a gamble, moments of fear, insecurity and discomfort are created. But also, the feeling of inferiority in a structured environment to probably not do everything correctly, is something almost everyone knows who intends to cross a border. The work “Casino” is installed directly in the former entry area. The significance of the surrounding space and the border architecture is already changing from afar, for example when visiting the Marienborn/Helmstedt rest stop. For Elva Lai, “Casino” is also a metaphor for the partially arbitrary frontier policy of most states – the rules for crossing borders from country to country are different and closely linked to their own nationality. |
Elva Lais Anstoß für die Arbeit "Casino" war ihre Reflektion über das Gefühl im Moment einer Grenzüberquerung. Wie beim Spielen eines Glückkpiels entsteht Momente von Angst, Unsicherheit und Unbehagen. Aber auch das Gefühl von Minderwertigkeit in einer durchstruckturierten Umgebung wöhlmoglich nicht alles richtig zu machen, kennt nehezu jeder Mensch, der eine Grenze passieren will. Die Arbeit Casino ist direkt im ehemaligen Einreisebereich installiert. Sie verändert schon aus der Ferne-z.B, biem Besuch der Raststätte Marienborn/Helmstedt die Bedeutung des sie umgebenenen Raums und der Grenarchitektur. Für Elva Lai ist Casino auch eine Metapher für die teilweise willkürlich wirkende Grenzpolitik der meisten Staaten- die Vorschriften zur Überqurerung von Grenzen von Land zu Land sind verschieden und eng mit der eigenen Nationalität verbunden.
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Every morning you wake up at six o'clock, dress up and go to work on time. With tired eyes, you look at the dark sky of the winter night.
This painting is for everyone in society who is trying to use the limited resources at their disposal and live under the constraints of the society already in place. In a landscape of darkness, rows and rows of people are arranged on a flat surface in a neat and orderly fashion. The neatness of the arrangement is a metaphor for the social and economic systems and rules that have been established in our society. Each person in the painting has a star glowing above their heads, radiating light and organising themselves into a field of starlight. Little by little, colourful drifts of starlight illuminate the blackened canvas from above and below. Here is a symbol of love and hope, of the hope that brings strength, transformation and comfort. The black paint is applied to the canvas in thin layers, and some of the corners of the canvas have even been deliberately rubbed away to reveal the texture of the canvas, reducing the heaviness of the black paint. The geometric lines lightly outline a fictional space and a flat stage, and the mid-ground of the painting is mixed with oil toning oils, the paint becomes soft and shiny, reflecting a sense of wetness as if the painting has just been painted; it also enriches the heavy black background. In the centre of the black scenery, a layer of neatly arranged starlight floats, as if to suggest that another dimension also exists, bringing hope and surprise to the scene. The colourful scraps of confetti and starlight that float across the stage seem to celebrate something. It brings a hint of hope to the black scenery. |
每天早上六點起床，穿戴整齊，準時上班。疲累的雙眼，望向冬夜黑漆的天空，
這幅畫是為每一個在社會上，努力運用手上的資源，在已經建設下的社會制約下，努力生活着的人而畫。 一片黑漆漆的空間中，一排一排的人在一個平地上，整齊地排列，井然有序。 整齊的排列暗示的是我們社會中已建構的社經系統及規則。畫中每一個人頭頂上都一顆星光發光，散發着光輝，組織成一片星光。一點一點的、色彩豐富的星光飄灑，從上以下，點綴着黑漆一片的畫布。這裏象徵的是愛及盼望，期望帶來力量、轉變及安慰。 我們再細緻一點觀賞畫面，黑色顏料薄薄的一層塗上在畫布上，甚至有些畫布角落刻意地被磨走了顏料，透出畫布紋理，減輕黑色顏料沉重的感覺。 幾何的線條輕巧地勾勒出一個虛構的空間及平面舞台，畫面中部份顏料混和了油畫調色油，顏料變得柔亮，反應着濕潤的感覺，彷彿畫作剛剛畫好；也豐富了沉重的黑色佈景。 在黑色佈景的中央，飄浮着一層排列整齊的星光，彷彿暗示着另一個空間同樣存在着，為畫面帶下了盼望及驚喜。 飄灑在整個舞台中的七彩的碎紙及星光，彷彿在慶祝着什麼。為黑色的佈景帶來一絲的盼望。 期望這幅畫，能使你在黑暗中找到共鳴。 |
About FREEDOM SWIMMERS
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Aim of the project:
1. Connecting refugees with us, who are relatively stable and safe in our society, by focusing on the refugee issues, esp. about their ways of learning new skills, new spaces, new cultures, and their daily life such as eating, sleeping, and waiting. For example, how different would they experience Time under anxiety and uncertainty? |
2. A deeper understanding of the human condition in crisis to generate creative artwork that will benefit both refugees and us to build a society with understanding and compassion. |
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The Landskrona Foto Resident 2016 was artist Elva Lai (Ming Chu) from Hong Kong. Elva Lai was born in China in 1989, but grew up in Hong Kong. Her journey from China to Hong Kong gave her a special relationship with migration and memory, which shows in her work.
This project juxtaposes the escape of Syrian refugees in 2015 and the history of refugees from China to Hong Kong in the 60s and 70s. In the framework of this book, the history of Hong Kong “Freedom Swimmers” in the 60s and 70s is presented, and the escape stories of Syrian refugees to Germany in Summer 2015 are presented as illustrations. This juxtaposition hopes to reveal the familiar and the unfamiliar situations that refugees face in different eras and locations. Most importantly, how we could relate ourselves to the refugees by understanding the issues of giving and taking. Besides, this juxtaposition shares an understanding of our current rapid population movement and how close we could relate ourselves to another culture and history. By looking at the detail of escapes experience of refugees, we may be able to realize the fragility of our living situation and how modernization and liberalism give us an illusion that we are offered choices in life.
These two refugee histories seem unrelated and computer technologies seem to change lots of details of how a human escape from a nation to another one. However, at the same time, advanced technologies increase the security system in every aspect, harm our freedom and putting a certain group of people in legal limbo. The experience of refugees in both histories show the coincidence of unchanged hardships of being a refugee, regardless of time and cultural background. Another focus is about us, about how we react to them and think about the notion of giving and talking. |
FREIHEIT SCHWIMMER von Elva Lai
Dieses Projekt stellt die Flucht der syrischen Flüchtlingen und die Geschichte der Flüchtlingen von China nach Hongkong in den 60er und 70er Jahren nebeneinander. Im Rahmen dieses Buches wird die Geschichte von Hongkong "Freedom Swimmers" in den 60er und 70er Jahren präsentiert und das Leben der syrischen Flüchtlingen als Illustrationen dargestellt. Man hofft durch diese Gegenüberstellung, die gewohnte und die ungewohnte Situationen, die Flüchtlinge in verschiedenen Epochen und Orten begegnet sind, zu enthüllen. Am wichtigsten ist, wie wir uns mit den Flüchtlingen durch das Verstehen von Fragen des Gebens und Nehmens verknüpfen könnten. |
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Hong Kong was nearly a no-man’s land before the British occupied it in 1841. There were only 3,668 people there, according to the first population census conducted and only 4 percent who responded to the survey considering Hong Kong as their home. Over 95 percent of them were from Guangdong Province.1(Hong Kong, Register General's office, 1881:4) After one hundred years after, immigrant population from Guangdong Province increased into 4.98 million in 1981. However, less than 3 percent of them consider Hong Kong as their place of origin.2 Large scale immigrations from China to Hong Kong were often due to the natural catastrophes, wars and domestic turmoil. In Hong Kong history, they are regarded as the pioneers of Hong Kong. In this no man's land, everyone can actively act as pioneers. They are not immigrants who will be regarded as “ugly strangers, but without prejudice as exiled fellow sufferers”.3 (Vilem Flusser) The weaving of Hong Kong as a future homeland, “the transformation of adventure into custom and this sanctification of customary remained exciting as long as more new waves of immigrants were received. The net in the process of being woven is still open”.4 [...]
However, since Hong Kong was made up of “refugees” and “exiles” from the mainland, the legacy of the diasporic landscape created earlier among Hong Kong citizens are still visible. Since Hong Kong is a part of China, a Chinese dominated society, with the same written language but very different cultural identities, the experience of diaspora of Hong Kong people is a kind of “Localised Diaspora”.5 The significant tendency of Hong Kong people moving from China or emigrating to English speaking countries are suggested that they are influenced by their “refugee mentality” which has existed ever since the colonial government was formed.(George C.S. Lin, 2003) Due to political uncertainties associated with the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, there were many citizens chose to emigrate from Hong Kong to English speaking countries. Economic reasons are not the concern of migration due to the long achieved economic establishments in Hong Kong.[...] It is until the 21st century that the young adults and teenagers, who were born in Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s and who cannot emigrate out of Hong Kong, may see Hong Kong as their last resort. Colonization has been a powerful catalyst in the desire to differentiating Hong Kong culture from the culture of the continent.6 This also explains why Chinese diaspora, including those in Hong Kong, has always demonstrated a greater emotional attachment to their native place or their ancestral homeland then to the vague connection of their Chinese national identity. The society of post-colonial Hong Kong is strange to Hong Kong Chinese immigrants. Things are beginning to be institutionalized. Acceptance into Hong Kong is more and more difficult. Prejudice begins to crystallize. In that case, the establishment of Hong Kong as a new homeland shows signs of success. However, the large immigration from China to Hong Kong never stopped after 1997. Those new immigrants from China are now “ugly” strangers at the door. |
The conflicts between new immigrant and the local Hong Kongers are intensified when Hong Kong is experiencing its post-colonial and post-industrial period. Moreover, the immigration policy of Hong Kong is determined by the central, not on the hand of Hong Kong and it is a symbol of sovereignty of China. New immigrants from Guangdong after 1997 are domestic migrants. There are no rivalling skin color, name and other features of racial barriers with the locals, only a few older immigrants have arrived in Hong Kong with accent features, and in general, they have quickly gotten educational resources to accelerate the assimilation process. Guangdong immigrant parents are mostly blue-collar but the formal education received by their children in Hong Kong have a greater likelihood of upward assimilation of this second generation. These immigrant parents tend to maintain some contact with mainland China (the same family community), and therefore tend to adopt selective acculturation.7 (Portes & Rumbaut, 2001) Now, most of the new immigrant children complete their studies to join the labor market. Most of them have completed the process of personal boundary assimilation. In the processes of boundary crossing, boundary crossing, boundary shifting and boundary blurring , according to Baubock (1994), Zolberg and Woon (1999)8, it includes individuals crossing boundaries, such as change in using Cantonese; and also in the social dimension, such as public facilities added Mandarin broadcasting, as an informal language; and finally the broader boundaries shift - group identity reconstruction. However, the process of assimilation is limited to the widespread hostility of Hong Kong society to the mainland. The community against mainlanders to visit Hong Kong is confused with the concept of mainland immigrants, making the reconstruction of social inclusion boundary for the new immigrant family, particularly during economic crisis, a failure.
Age is the crucial elements influencing the process of assimilation. Children or teenagers are sensitive and unstable in their formative years. Migration brings the extra pressure for the development of self-esteem. However, the process of overcoming personal boundaries is fast and tends to succeed. Since I came to Hong Kong at the age of eight and received full education in Hong Kong, I regard Hong Kong as my home. The formation of me as who I am now is from the cultural and social values of Hong Kong. I have participated in the migration history of Hong Kong like my father, who participated in the Great Escape 9 from China in the 1970s. For centuries, people leaving and coming to Hong Kong change their homelands after settling. I start to realize the helplessness of talking about the traumatic experience to audiences. More or less, we all have similar experiences and we all know, sadness is not the pursue of migration. We search for happiness and hope. After painstakingly retrieving memory in the distance past, I realise I did not construct the very childhood of my own in a proper way. The inspiration of most of the work I did at the beginning of the series about migration is based on personal memory. It focuses on my childhood traumatic memory as a new immigrant child who faced the death of my father at adolescence. However, tears is not the signature of my childhood. Instead of only retrieving memory in my head, which is full of mistakes and doubts, I start to think of experiencing migration again slowly and light-heartedly as a traveller. I re-visited the house my father bought for my mother as a gift, as a consolation of their separation. For years, while I heard of my mother wanted to go back and visit this house after the death of my father, I feel the piercing sadness immediately, which prompted me to set aside the idea of returning to that house. I have a strong affection for this house where I spent most of my childhood. The intention of behaving and pretending to be a traveller is to clear up the misunderstanding and fear I had while travelling from this house to Hong Kong when I was young, and the sadness which I may had exaggerated while leaving this house. |
1. Laurence J.C. Ma and Carolyn Cartier, The Chinese diaspora : space, place, mobility, and identity (Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 141.
2. Ibid, 145.
3. Friedemann Malsch and Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Forward to Migration : Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, George Brecht, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Constant, Robert Filliou, Olafur Gislason, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mona Hatoum, Nicolas Humbert, Werner Penzel, Mario Merz, Marcel Odenbach, Kim Sooja (Köln : Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2003), 10.
4. Ma & Cartier, 156
5. Frank Vigneron, Chapter 1: Localized Diaspora, I like Hong Kong : art and deterritorialization( Hong Kong : Chinese University Press, c2010.)
6. Ibid, 9.
7. Rubén G Rumbaut; Alejandro Portes, Ethnicities : children of immigrants in America, ed. Rubʹen G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes (Publisher: Berkeley : University of California Press, 2001)
8. Zolberg, Aristide, and Long Litt Woon, Why Islam is like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States. (Germany: Council of Europe,1999), 27 (1): 5-38.
9. Bing'an. Chen, Great Escape to Hong Kong, (Hong Kong:Hong Kong Open Page Publishing Company Ltd., 2013 )
2. Ibid, 145.
3. Friedemann Malsch and Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Forward to Migration : Joseph Beuys, Alighiero Boetti, George Brecht, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Constant, Robert Filliou, Olafur Gislason, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mona Hatoum, Nicolas Humbert, Werner Penzel, Mario Merz, Marcel Odenbach, Kim Sooja (Köln : Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, 2003), 10.
4. Ma & Cartier, 156
5. Frank Vigneron, Chapter 1: Localized Diaspora, I like Hong Kong : art and deterritorialization( Hong Kong : Chinese University Press, c2010.)
6. Ibid, 9.
7. Rubén G Rumbaut; Alejandro Portes, Ethnicities : children of immigrants in America, ed. Rubʹen G. Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes (Publisher: Berkeley : University of California Press, 2001)
8. Zolberg, Aristide, and Long Litt Woon, Why Islam is like Spanish: Cultural Incorporation in Europe and the United States. (Germany: Council of Europe,1999), 27 (1): 5-38.
9. Bing'an. Chen, Great Escape to Hong Kong, (Hong Kong:Hong Kong Open Page Publishing Company Ltd., 2013 )
: Travel and homeland
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Migration theory focuses on geographical distance from A to B, from homeland to hostland. We experience geographical distance with time. To understand geographical distance, we tend to describe it with units of time. If migration is an experience of time - distance, revisiting a long forgotten place is another way of migration. I am a stranger of that house. After seventeen years, the house has been gradually deteriorated , now it looks like an elderly who craves for love and care.We are strangers, but the buttons for the lights and the patterns of tiles are still familiar to me. But they are neutral and normal. They are quiet. No memory resides at the corner of every wall. The floating dust does not reveal any stories behind. I cannot think of anything when I tried to read from the scars on the walls. The air is full of dust but it represents nothing.
This nothingness is a deep peace. There is no dramatic discovery from the journey. The nothingness is very close to the normal and boring days I spent in the house when I was young. A very normal Monday after school. This nothingness brings me enormous peace while I was travelling back to Hong Kong. The process is slow but it is intense. [...] When I went up to the rooftop, I decided to rent a room in the hotel in front of my house. It was a hotel that lit fireworks for almost all festivals and we - my mother, my siblings and I, would climb up to the rooftop when we heard the noise of fireworks indoors and I would scream with my neighbor’s children who also climbed onto their rooftops. There was a desire of going into the hotel when I was little. The journey of digging the past seems neverending. The issue of migration was once my eagerness to understand who I am and where I was from. To understand oneself is always a starting point for many young artists. Accidentally, an experience of migration chose me before I decide what I actually wanted. This journey inspires my artmaking for the show, “How about the other 80% you forgot?”. It is an exhibition about the clearing of memory and experiencing distant memory in daily life. It investigates life between important memories through redundant and daily snippets of life in the distant past that we may be unaware of. And we would be able to find out how memory in the distant past exists in present. |
The investigation of the migration history of Hong Kong opens the unfamiliar and untimely sensitivity regarding how one’s own form of living connects inevitably to the others far away and in the past. [...] Memory images presented and analyzed by the migrant artists in this paper, portraying a sense of helplessness, is always lingering on most of the works, especially on the work of the painstakingly made charcoal drawing animation of Kendridge, the work of M. Ligaya Alcuitas and the actions by Emily Jacir to the Palestinian refugees. Those memory images of desire and sadness constructed by their hands are kisses and hugs we wanted to send out to the forgotten ones. Owing to the ongoing development of xenophobic governmental policies by developed countries and zones of humanitarian conflicts, there is an continuing social and economic apartheid between developed countries and developing countries. It is always uneasy to deal with past social injustice, needless to say the current urgent situation of Palestinians.
“Homeland exists only in our memory in this era.” 10 For many migrants now living in their shelters, their homeland may now be undergoing a war, a rainstorm or being buried or occupied. We all have our own difficulties of going back to our homeland where the people we loved too little resided. There may never be a way to go back to such a homeland. The innate “weakness” - searching for home- of art on migration may never be solved. However, in the artmaking process or by reinventing dialogues between unbridged parties, we start to construct creative dialogues and writings to come. On the other hand, by revealing personal past memories, artists find their ways to dismiss the past by depicting and washing away memory that do not know how to erase itself. |
10. Malsch & Meyer-Stoll, Migration, 248
Freedom Swimmers of Hong Kong
Elva Lai, 2015
Elva Lai, 2015
| excerpt from thesis.pdf |