Para Site presents A Journal of the Plague Year’s first stop on its international traveling schedule. This group exhibition, which originally took place a year ago at Para Site and adjacent locations, is now traveling in a slightly revised version to TheCube Project Space in Taipei, opening Saturday 28 June.

A Journal of the Plague Year, Fear, Ghosts, Rebel, SARS, Leslie and the Hong Kong Story starts from the events that affected Hong Kong in the spring of 2003: the most significant airborne epidemic in recent years - the SARS crisis, coupled with the tragic death of pop figure and icon Leslie Cheung. The unparalleled shutdown of the city and the atomization of society in quarantined segments led to an unexpected shift in the political awareness of the Hong Kong citizenry.

This exhibition navigates through disparate but interconnected narratives and contributes to a critical discussion about recent history whose implications extend beyond Hong Kong. The fear of contamination, physiological and cultural, the anxiety of societies encountering alterities and facing their own projections and prejudices are explored through the contribution of artists of various generations, shown together with historical artifacts and pop culture ephemera.

TheCube Project Space is delighted to host A Journal of the Plague Year’s first touring stop in Asia. Taiwan and Hong Kong share many chapters of their history. This exhibition wants to serve as a start for a reflection on this shared historical background and rhetoric narratives between the two regions facing a tumultuous present and an uncertain future under the same specter. A Journal of the Plague Year is curated by Cosmin Costinas and Inti Guerrero.

Featured artists: Ai Weiwei, Bernd Behr, Natalia Sui-hung Chan, Oscar Chan Yik Long, Yin-Ju Chen, George Chinnery, Megan Cope, Dung Kai-Cheung, Larry Feign, James T. Hong, Irene Kopelman, Firenze Lai, Lam Qua, Lee Kit, Len Lye, Ma Liuming, Fionnuala McHugh, Moe Satt, Josef Ng, Pak Sheung Chuen, Para/Site Art Criticism Class 2003, Lygia Pape, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Adrian Wong, Ming Wong, Ricky Yeung Sau-churk, Samson Young, Mathias Woo & Edward Lam and Zuni Icosahedron.

-Para/Site

Image: © Len Lye
Courtesy New Zealand Film Archive - Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua and The Len Lye Foundation; Govett-Brewster Art Gallery