Press Release
Not Waving but Drowning
18 January — 7 February 2025
Monday - Sunday, 24 Hours
304 Shanghai Street, Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong
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PRÉDÉDÉE is pleased to announce Not Waving but Drowning, a solo exhibition by WU Lok Hang. The presentation is on view from Saturday, 18 January to 7 February 2025.
Taking the subject of water and its fluidity as a starting point, WU seeks to reframe the conventional mode of exhibition in relation to time and space by adopting a changing format. Spanning from photography to video installation, the works are not to be seen as a whole but rather will be interspersed and alternately replaced, inviting visitors to return over the span of three weeks and thereby opening up the potentials of the space as a transitional site for continuous (ex)change.
The architectural form of the art space is deliberately exploited. For WU, the striking feature of a display window is not meant to be perceived solely as a static entity, instead it is a reciprocal and relational structure that is subject to constant change — its configuration a perpetual interaction between inside and outside, yet each moves at its own pace. By aligning its modus operandi with the shifting dynamics of water, the evolving, installative setting quietly composes a liminal space that gently manoeuvres through the pulse of time, pausing briefly before making another turn.
The exhibition title borrows from the poem written by the English poet Stevie Smith, which depicts a poignant mishap of a person who looks as if casually waving from a distance, when in truth was actually drowning. As the title suggests, while such gesture can be equivocal under the circumstances, it is ultimately the onlooker who perceives and determines how the narration is unfolded, which might lead to misinterpretation or simply ignorance. Not only does such narrative allude to our tendency to misconstrue and overlook the signals around us, in one way or another it also poetically suggests life is simply an array of possibilities to be mistaken. Drawing on the motif of water as an ever-changing force, the works presented reveal not only its ambiguity and the potential oversight that may arise in the process of looking, but also build upon an acute sense of multiplicity by which various visual language and materials converge, opening up a mode of production that pushes beyond the capacity of photographic reading and transmutes the fragments of prosaic moments into a site of making that recurrently activates the space through its own move.
Hong Kong Arts Development Council supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.
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WEEK I
18 January — 24 January 2025
