Exhibition on ‘Play’: A Good Waste of Time
When was the last time you played? Babies do not play. They explore and experiment with their senses, they just do what they do. At some point, adults introduced the word ‘play’, loaded with presumptions, judgment and worse, goals. In A Good Waste of Time, at Oi! Street between 16/6–9/9, curator Solomon YU and six artists explores the ‘play’ in a ‘playful’ manner.
Entrants are first welcomed by Thomas YUEN’s video game Gonna Salvage You Each Time, where they control the protagonists, a father or mother in typical local attire, to destroy their son’s video game console using a duster (chicken fur brush). Next, Moss HO’s The Secret of the Six-Pack is a flesh-tone fabric structure with seats and movable objects. One could use them as instructed or simply let yourself fixate on the fabric. As one is seated around The Secret contemplating on the relationship between the body and food, ones’ eyes are drawn to the pop-art-esque exhibition set that boldly transforms this heritage site into a dream land.
Rubber kitchen gloves are featured next in Physical Limit by Rogerger NG. Two stations are set to test the physical limits of the gloves; and not to give away the work, let’s just say that protective goggles and ear pieces are prepared for participants. Erected at the end of the room is Koko KO’s My Playground, a structure and various interactive pieces created with plastic drainage pipes.
Physical Limit and My Playground takes everyday material and satisfies certain curiosities and daydreams. They contrast with the more whimsical and surreal setting of The Secret, and the slapstick irony of Gonna Salvage.
Wait a minute…there is a 6th work almost hidden in a side wing, perhaps as a metaphor for everyone’s yearning and fear for a horror scene. Electronic work Annabelle’s Room by CHEUK Wing-nam may incorporate such classic elements, but after the initial scare/laugh, would the sight of the monotonous and lifeless dolls evoke something deeper in the corners of one’s heart?
This exhibition captures something about play that high-tech works by Lozano-Hammer and the monumental Test Site by Carsten Höller do not: the low-tech and hands-on-ness of play. Participants do not just play a part in the grand plan of the artist. A Good Waste of Time does not awe, it makes one want to play more.
What is ‘play’? The exhibition embraces but problematizes the judgment that it is a ‘good’ waste of time’. Developmental psychologist, children rights activists and anthropologists will tell you that ‘play’ is an indispensable activity and a serious matter. While this exhibition hints toward such seriousness, the opinion on play is also (tai) ying chun chau shue liu (being too serious misses the point).
Note: Play and fun is such a part of community and socially-engaged art. This exhibition brings up some good questions and ideas about it. There will be at least 1 more piece over the summer that goes deeper into ‘play’, its role in art, its usefulness and its use in community and socially-engaged arts.
