Welcome to Show Flat 04 and take comfort in the familiar air of nostalgia with Stanley Wong’s apartment installation, reminiscent of the artist’s life in Hong Kong. Alluding to the episode of the madeleine from Proust’s epic novel, Wong reflects on the power of memory to trigger extraordinary feelings of love and joy from ordinary objects and experiences.

The quirky interior of Show Flat 04 features an unusual display of everyday objects and furniture in Red-White-Blue striped tarpaulin, a motif and fabric that share a common thread with the stories and lives of people in urbanising Hong Kong. A metaphor of resilience, this humble material is commonly used as construction canopies and bags by manual labourers, street sleepers and families in transit, against a backdrop of rapid change.

Practical and poetic, Show Flat 04 uses this common fabric to build a living apartment that invites everyone to come together to re-ignite a family, communal spirit that is increasingly eroded by the ethos of individualism and materialism – bringing Third Floor’s theme for 2013, Habitations, to full circle.

More than an artist, Wong identifies himself as a social worker using visual communication platforms to express social issues by giving a fresh spin to the ubiquitous Red-White-Blue fabric with photography, poster design and art installations. Show Flat 04 shows us the best things in life are indeed, immaterial.

Image: © anothermountainman (stanley wong)