Parallel Worlds: Sara Tse and Shirley Tse presents the works of two closely-related artists working with sculpture and objects. The two sisters are internationally acclaimed artists, but living in different worlds: Sara Tse is based in Hong Kong and Shirley Tse is based in Los Angeles since 1990. They both graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, but have taken different paths. They use different languages in their daily lives and belong to two different art communities. And despite the globalisation of the art world, their practices are informed and contextualised by different trajectories of contemporary art. This will be the first time works by the Tse sisters will be presented side by side. The exhibition will feature recent work as well as earlier works, which will exemplify and provide a deeper understanding of their works and practices, their connections, relationships as well as differences.

While it is tempting to point out the obvious dichotomy of their practices; Sara Tse works with ceramics, a natural material while Shirley Tse is invested in plastics or synthetic materials, in this post-medium specific era, such focus on materials or media may be too myopic and overshadow the more interesting and intricate approaches towards object-making. For example, one similarity in their work is the examination of the fragility in the everyday, whether it is a shirt that has been transformed into eggshell-thin porcelain, or packing styrofoam that has been machined carved into intricate forms, both items of extreme vulnerability and of the transience. While ceramics and plastics are supposed to last forever, paradoxically in the Tse sisters' applications, the longevity of these materials is challenged. The difference between their practices is perhaps less vested in materials and more in the different visual language each artist employs: while Shirley Tse explores multiplicity via plasticity, Sara Tse presents inscription of memory. Curiously, there is a common shift in their recent work towards the narrative, specifically the narratives of Chinese diaspora, exposing a deeper autobiographical content. For example, Shirley Tse was given some faded tourist slides of Hong Kong from a friend in Los Angeles whose parents were tourists in the 1960s. These slides are now in the hands of Sara Tse and will be the subject of her new work in the exhibition. Shirley Tse will also include work from her Quantum Shirley Series, a body of work inaugurated in 2008 that imagines the connection between personal narratives, economics (as manifested through movement of traded goods), political ruptures and theoretical explanation of reality.
 

Public Programme

Artists Talk
Date:
 27 March 2010 (Saturday)
 
Time:
 3.00pm – 4.30pm
 
Participating Artist:
 Sara Tse and Shirley Tse
 
Venue:
 Osage Kwun Tong
 

Workshop
In 2007, Sara Tse made use of her friends' old blankets to cut up and weave together to make her brother's tricycle. Once she even fell asleep whilst she was sewing. In her dreams she travelled back into her childhood and fulfilled many of her past wishes. In this workshop, Tse will ask participants to bring some old items of clothing, or blanket, to reconstruct forgotten objects we once longed for as a child. Through the process of sewing and stitching we can recover past desires and experience the joys of dreaming again.

 
Date:
 4 April 2010 and 11 April 2010 (Sunday)
 
Time:
 3pm – 5pm
 
Participating Artist:
 Sara Tse
 
Venue:
 Osage Kwun Tong
 
Fee:
 Free Admission
 
Reservation:
 Vivian Poon

* Basic sewing technique is required.