I remember my art professor emphasizing on how important it is to recognize the experience that you want your audience to have before creating an installation piece. Installation pieces are time-consuming projects that are more about inviting your audience into a new world, than just purely expressing your own point of view. It has that power of going beyond two dimensions, and the ability to create a unique relationship with your audience which you may never have expected.
Passage/s: The Pram Project by Do Ho Suh at Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong includes a series of three-channel video installation, which investigates into the forgotten perspective of the children. The South-Korean artist fixed GoPro cameras onto the sides and the top of a pram to record his and his young daughter’s stroll in the London neighborhood. This emphasis on the children’s perspective not only reminds us of the special excitement and curiosity that we once had about the city, but it also depicts the changes that Suh has gone through during fatherhood. The videos include their chatters and the noises of the street, and Suh has deliberately edited the video so that the location jumps from London to Seoul, and from English to Korean. This, therefore, includes the experience of both the cultures and draws a vivid picture of Suh’s family life. The three-channels each projects a different point of view simultaneously, inviting the audiences for an intimate and immersive experience.
This way of presentation comments on Suh’s complex understanding of identity and place. Touching on the themes of the city and our sense of familiarity with certain environments, his series also delivers a sense of nostalgia. Especially for the artist himself, “the experience of fatherhood has offered an opportunity for deeper reflection as he incorporates his children into his work, drawing his audience to consider how cycles of life contribute to one’s sense of place and purpose.”
Do Ho Suh: Passage/s
20th March to 13th, May 2017
407 Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central
