So Close , Yet So Far -  Solo Exhibition by Cordelia Tam

 Venue: Hong Kong Visual Arts Center, 7A Kennedy Road, Central, Hong Kong

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Humans are a part of nature, and yet in this age, urbanisation keeps on distancing us from nature. The artist, Cordelia Tam, seeks to permeate the natural world to our urban space with a series of multi-media works.

 

Responding to the unique features of the building, the works combine different media, including handmade paper, projection, sound, machinery, animation and light, to convey the flow of nature, subtleties of movement and duration of time. The works remind us of visual elements in nature, which are brought indoors to interact with the architecture to create an illusionary space with poetic imageries. The artist continues to use daily office waste papers to be her main material. Papers have their origin from trees in the natural world. They are returned to a pulp state, from which handmade papers are produced and transformed into window sceneries and falling leaves. The choice and application of materials speak to the subtle relationship between our life and nature.

 

Living in this city full of skyscrapers, our few glances of nature are perhaps limited to looking up at the sky and clouds between the buildings, listening to birds tweeting amid all the noises of vehicles and construction works, or seeing tree shadows and fallen leaves when walking on the streets. The works bring these few natural sceneries indoors and from the illusions, the audience may temporarily forget about the distance between the city and nature.

 

When passersby stop or slow down their pace to observe these artificial sceneries, the sensory experience may prompt them to relax and in the peace of the moment, contemplate our complex relationship with nature which is so close and yet so far. From this perception of nature, they may reflect on the actual environment that we are living in today.