Bridge #5 – Ladies Market (女人街)

Model of the exhibition space

“Ladies Market”(女人街) is a market full of counterfeit goods and local items for sale in Hong Kong.  It is a unique place that embodies the most complex of cultural traditions and reflections of local Hong Kong community, but before that, younger generations would be too quick to realize that and would often associate it as cheap, dirty, and local(in a bad way).  Generations of teenagers today would be sharing the same influences and interests, mostly online, due to globalization in common beliefs.  However, I remain skeptical to the idea of globalization as it is mostly informations from more powerful countries that gets transmitted and shared, skewing social standards of what is good or bad, in general terms, for the generations growing up under this context.

For me Being raised under that environment kids would think that being westernized, studying abroad, speaking in English means superior.  Foreign means better.  This might sound cliche but it truly affects our view on our own cultural identity or even feel ashamed of ourselves, it gets worse when being in a city like Hong Kong where gentrifications and adaptations for better developments are really prominent, but would left us with no identity of our own as everything is more or less homogenized, leaving me with this question of “who am I as someone coming from Hong Kong” or what my true identity is, building on to that reluctancy of being “local”.  But to offer another perspective, put aside all perceptions of cultural traditions and already established social standards, social standards are what we made it to be, and our perceptions are only based on our beliefs.  Therefore, through placing a large installation room of a red white blue nylon plastic booth, resembling booths in Ladies Market, in the busiest street in Soho, I am trying to forcefully skew audience perspective and challenge the social standards of what is better, and more luxurious with under appreciate subjects like Ladies Market.  To bring out a sense of embracement and pride in the identity that I/ my community have long repelled, try to rediscover and appreciate beauty in the low, and try to create exciting things with commonly under appreciated subjects.

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