Global Uprising Footprint (G.U.F.): “A Walk around…” video series, 2020
Hong Kong videos: Clara Cheung, Tacitly Wong, Kenji Wong, Ocean Leung
New York videos: Leia-Lee Doran, Art Jones
Project Statement:
Initiated by artists/activists in Hong Kong, G.U.F. seeks to generate a collection of stories about recent global uprisings; a platform for shared experiences and solidarity; and the first step towards building a trans-local network of alliance among all those who face not only the same social and political struggles, but the same internal conflicts within their own movement organizations. Nietzsche wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking”. G.U.F invites artists, activists, and community organizers from all over the world to submit short films around the topic of resistance through the act of walking. In order to facilitate exchange and dialogue among cities where uprisings took place in 2019 to the present, G.U.F invites artists, activists, and community organizers from different locales to conduct a series of walks in their place of abode. The aim is to generate a series of short films of walks/city tours led by different individuals who have insights about the city, its communities and its protests, and share their personal stories.
During the Anti-ELAB movement in Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s protesters adopted strategies from all over the world. The decentralized strategy, which Hong Kong is famous for, is a continuation of the use of social media in protests which began in Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street. On the other hand, gilet jaunes, Catalan protesters and BLM protesters in USA were known to adopt tactics from Hong Kong. G.U.F realizes the urgency to learn from communities in other geographic locations in order to build a stronger network, and aims to provide a platform where participants can collectively strategize and reflect on protest plans by sharing with each other the difficulties and obstacles they face.
In the “afterbefore” exhibition at Hera Gallery, G.U.F. presents videos made by artists/activists in the Hong Kong protest movement and in the Black Lives Matter movement in New York.
Kenji Wong
Kenji Wong is an artist and front line photographer working for Stand News in Hong Kong. 'Hong Kong: Asia's World City' tells the story of his recent experience near the waterfront in Tsim Sha Tsui. This area is famous for its iconic view of the city's harbor.
Tacitly Wong
Tacitly's video recounts the day on which she returned to her secondary school to show support for a young student protester who was shot by police on 1 October 2019, during a protest on China’s national day. Some believe he is now living in exile in the US.
Jan belongs to the generation of youth whose political awakening began in 2012, when the Hong Kong government introduced "moral and national education" courses to strengthen "national identity awareness" and nurture patriotism. Jan's walk is around a shopping mall in Shatin, in which fiery clashes between police and protesters erupted in July 2019.
Art Jones
I put it together this video thinking about the ‘strange bedfellows’ that HK protesters and the US make: the history of black non-violent protest going back to the 1950’s determined how protests happens everywhere, and much of BLM looked to Hong Kong tactics going back to Umbrella Movement and that informed a lot of the actions of last Spring and Summer. It’s an amazing feedback loop of translation of protest- can it be that protest has a ‘language’ or ‘syntax’ that is specific to a place? - Art Jones
Disaster Tourist: NYC/HK navigates between two geographic locations across time. It combines footages of Civil Rights Movement, BLM, and the Anti-ELAB movement with those taken by the artist in his research trip to Hong Kong in 2017. Through the ambiguous and intriguing juxtaposition of image and text, a series of tough but pertinent questions are raised – Are pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong in support of a pro-Trump, right-wing and racist America? Or do they embrace the America that stands for equalitarian and democratic ideologies? Does Hong Kong’s fight for freedom align with BLM’s fight for equality? The deliberate use of simplified Chinese characters (versus traditional Chinese characters which is the common written language in Hong Kong) in the text seems to be a simultaneous critique of Chinese neocolonialism, American imperialism, and to a certain extent Hong Kong nativist sentiment. In Disaster Tourist: NYC/HK, the tourist flâneur wanders with overlapping senses of time and place, in a hellish loop that brings him from one disaster to another. - G.U.F.
Leia-Lee Doran
Leia is a multidisciplinary artist living in Brooklyn, NY. Her video tells her stories of protests, from Occupy Wall Street to BLM, questioning what an Asian American perspective really means. In her own words, 'I had many conversations with Asian-American friends where we would try to work out where we fit into the movement and whether the problems facing our community were as serious or as worthy of consideration as the issues facing our Black friends. These questions included: In a protest, should we place our bodies in the line of danger alongside the white allies, to protect Black and brown people from the NYPD? Or does our inclusion under the umbrella of BIPOC (black, indigenous, and other people of colour) mean that we should stand with other minorities in the protected areas? Is it performative and empty to have a sign like 'Asian-Americans express solidarity with BLM' when many of our elders in particular absolutely don't?
Ocean Leung
Ocean is an artist based in Hong Kong. The video follows a bus route on Lai Chi Kok Road. It ends with a pavement graffiti that pays tribute to the twelve Hong Kong pro-democracy activists who were arrested, detained and eventually tried in China.
Clara Cheung
A walk Nathan Road' is hosted by Clara Cheung, an artist based in Hong Kong. Clara was elected District Councillor of Wan Chai in 2019. This is a tour around the area of Prince Edward subway station in Hong Kong.