{"id":185,"date":"2010-12-15T00:00:23","date_gmt":"2010-12-14T16:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/?p=185"},"modified":"2022-11-21T16:12:03","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T08:12:03","slug":"everyday-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/2010\/12\/everyday-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Pak Sheung-chuen: Everyday Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reporter: Samuel Chan Che-chung<\/p>\n

Pak Sheung-chuen does not read the way most people do. What first catches the artist\u2019s attention is not the title or the text of the material, but the positioning of the punctuation marks and the white border round the page.<\/p>\n

This unique reading habit may be a window to explaining some of the outlandish aspects of Pak\u2019s artworks. Most people may find it hard to read the information printed in the middle of an opened map book, between two pages. But Pak found inspiration in these spaces, and decided to make a journey through them. He walked 24 pages in total, from the south of Tokyo to the northern end of the city, documenting his trip along the way in 2007.<\/p>\n

This alternative journey project, titled \u201cValleys Trip\u201d (named for the gap in between the pages which resemble a valley), was one of Pak\u2019s works exhibited last year at the prestigious Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art exposition held in Venice every two years.<\/p>\n

For many Hong Kong artists, the chance to be the city\u2019s sole representative at the world\u2019s most important visual art event might be the dream of a lifetime. This was not the case for the 33-year-old Pak.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy works draw inspiration from daily life in a natural manner, , while Venice is like a stage. \u2019\u2019 he explains. \u201cYou have to make yourself stand out in certain ways to impress the audience. This kind of contradicts to the way I work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pak was also ill-suited to dealing with the media circus surrounding the biennale. Besides having to deal with the pressure of representing Hong Kong, he was also stressed by having to handle things he had no experience in, such as public relations and media criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never experienced such pressure before as an artist,\u201d he says.
\n
\nContrary to the popular stereotype of the suffering and starving artist, Pak has not faced too many hardships in his career. In fact, he considers himself the luckiest artist in Hong Kong. Pak graduated from the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University Fine Arts in 2002. The pressure to find work was put on hold by the outbreak of SARS soon after.<\/p>\n

In any case, he was given a visual arts column in the Sunday supplement of the Ming Pao newspaper. Pak says the column is a platform to do what he really wants to do, which is to tell ordinary people about the beauty in everyday life. In it, Pak presents his conceptual art on the printed page, with a few lines explaining what he is doing and why.<\/p>\n

His refreshing take on the ordinary things in everyday life could be what has attracted so many people to his work – Pak\u2019s column drew a lot of attention right from the beginning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI twist a little bit of what I see in life and take one more step to give new meanings to the ordinary,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Pak further explains that there are usually two approaches artists use to deal with the relationship between art and life, \u201cSome [artists] try to incorporate life as one of the elements in their artworks, which will prompt the audience to associate it with life. But in fact there\u2019s actually no relationship between the two.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOthers try to incorporate the elements of art into daily life. What they present are not artworks, but simply a desire they have to make life better,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Pak adds, \u201cI consider myself as belonging to the latter group.\u2019\u2019
\n
\nThe eagerness to make his own life better may explain why Pak\u2019s works are very personal in nature. In his latest \u201cGo Home Project\u201d which took place at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum during the Taipei Biennial 2010, Pak would wait everyday next to a vertical banner that read, \u201cLet the artist accompany you home!\u2019\u2019 He would then share a special journey with a visitor who responded to the invitation.<\/p>\n

Apart from challenging the conventional distinction between the artist and audience by exchanging roles, Pak says the project also stressed the importance of mutual trust. In retrospect, he realised this was an expression of his own sense of a lack of security.<\/p>\n

On the first night he moved into his current home in a village in the Sai Kung district last year, his home was broken into and all of his valuables were stolen. \u201cBefore that, there was no such thing as a thief in my world,\u2019\u2019 Pak says. \u201cEver since then, I don\u2019t feel secure at home and have become more alert to any possible danger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pak views the \u201cGo Home Project\u201d as part of a process of recovery, which helped him to rebuild his trust in others and heal the psychological harm that was done. He also describes his creative works as being driven by a visceral force.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy body helps me to search for what I really need. Sometimes these may even be things that I am not aware of myself,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt is not necessarily the brain that leads me along the creation process, it is the body which often reacts faster when something goes wrong inside. It will help you to recover your equilibrium.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pak says he has gone through years of persistent training in order to build up his sensitivity to his body\u2019s reactions and to the environment.<\/p>\n

He recalls forcing himself to walk on the streets every day during the time he was working for Ming Pao, as a way to train his senses. \u201cAfter walking slowly for a while, I am able to feel a certain level of tiredness in my body. That is when my breath, heartbeat and mind are in a state of perfect coordination\u2026 And then, \u2018Ding!\u201d, interesting ideas will pop into your head by themselves.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Pak gives an example of such an idea. He once dialled a number using the numbers of bus routes at a bus stop near his home. He talked to the person on the other end for quite a while.<\/p>\n

\u201d I believe that 10 out of 10 people you interview would not do such a crazy thing,\u201d Pak says, laughing. \u201cBut it is because of the sensitivity I have to the things around me that opens up different doors of possibilities for me to try things out.\u201d
\n
\nWondering how long it would take to consume all the air in the apartment that he rented while he was in Korea for the Busan Biennale in 2006, Pak decided to collect all of his breath in transparent plastic bags every day until, by the 10th day, they filled up the entire apartment.<\/p>\n

While most people cannot tolerate doing repetitive work for an unbearably long time, Pak has a different take on boredom. He attributes this to spending time at church when he was growing up. There, he developed the habit of praying and reading a Bible passage for two hours. At first, he found it difficult to sit through a sermon and listen to the pastor\u2019s repeated elaboration of the meaning behind a single Bible verse.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut once you have gone through the whole boring process, you\u2019ll discover something very valuable, \u201che says. \u201cAnd when you try chew on it and apply what you get out of it to daily life, the whole situation becomes more vivid and means much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pak takes pride in the fact that his artwork contains different levels of meaning and that the audience can often participate in the creative process as well.<\/p>\n

He cites the example of a newspaper project he did in 2004, in which he wrote the English word \u201cWin\u201d and drew a church by marking 24 numbers on each of two Mark Six lottery tickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the first level, readers participate by noticing my work and finding it interesting. Some of them may then follow suit and buy a similar ticket. By doing so, they have furthered their engagement in the process,\u201d he says. \u201cI regard them as having already \u2018won\u2019 the moment they bought the \u201cWin\u201d ticket as it will leave a lasting impression in their minds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pak says the audience reaches the third level of participation when they start to think about what else can be drawn on a Mark Six ticket because, \u201cthey will begin to see the world around them from other perspectives which will make their lives more fulfilling.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Pak prefers to see himself an art demonstrator rather than as some eminent artist. \u201cThis is because I believe that everyone has the capacity to do creative work,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s just that I have more time than the others to do it, or I am willing to put time into it.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Editor: Grace Wong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reporter: Samuel Chan Che-chung Pak Sheung-chuen does not read the way most people do. What first catches the artist\u2019s attention is not the title or the text of the material, but the positioning of the punctuation marks and the white border round the page. This unique reading habit may be a window to explaining some […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2008,79],"tags":[57,27,33],"class_list":["post-185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-issue-118","category-people","tag-art","tag-cuhk","tag-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":198,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/varsity.com.cuhk.edu.hk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}