The Chinese “tiān” is referring to either sky or day, so that the meaning of “bàntiān” maybe ambiguous. If “bàntiān” (as “half day”) reminds you of time, it is about how we are left with no more than half a day for ourselves each day after work. If “bàntiān” reminds you of “half the sky”, it is also related to “women of the new society”, a symbolic synonym for contemporary women. This exhibition takes “Half Day with Cloud” as the title to invite the audience to engage the word “half day”. Through different interpretations, we can imagine a variety of artists’ traits. This exhibition showcases both old and recent works from two young female artists, Yu Shuk Pui, Bobby and Lai Long Sang, Sunday, who are on their artistic journey towards greater heights. Neither has become a full time artist and among of anything (as Chinese saying “the rain within a half cloud”). Not only have their works debuted and showcased overseas, the artists themselves have also joined different artist-in-residence programmes. The content of their artwork differs, but both divide their time between work and creative production, and use artistic means to transform life outside of work period (i.e. while sleep or wandering), with the aim of revealing the relationships that average city dwellers fail to notice (i.e. person to person or person to objects relationships).
Yu’s on-going work, “Pillow Talk”, invites strangers to “sleep together”. She transforms the bed into a social event, allowing strangers to engage intimately while she looks on and records her observations. “Pillow talk” usually refers to a couple’s intimate conversations, Yu’s “Pillow Talk” derives from her imagination on daily life, creating a blurred situation for the “private and public”, “real and fictional” and “subject and object” to take place. This allows people to discover surprising communicative methods and relationships. Lai is particularly insightful in the way she carries out her visual documentation. She once hijacked IKEA’s showroom and turned it into her temporary household. Recording the time she spent there sleeping, reading and dining as an old piece “Living in the Scene” (2009). Through every day details or applying daily activities in a different setting, she constructs an abnormal network, as if emphasizing the alienating city life, the overly routine ways of living, the highly managed space and sense of isolation for the new piece shown in this exhibition.
This exhibition juxtaposes the artists’ old and recent works, emphasizing how they continuously consolidate and focus on everyday life settings, thereby, revealing the different traits of city life.
