‘Grow better human beings’: farmer-artists in Hong Kong on traditional farming, food ethics and their mixed callings
- Natalie Lo and Laurent Gutierrez got into farming for very different reasons but both focus on its traditional values and host educational activities
- ‘We always have the possibility of a food crisis’ in Hong Kong, Gutierrez says, something that was seen with panic buying during the pandemic
Hongkonger Natalie Lo Lai-lai, with a bachelor’s and master’s in fine art, has been farming in Yuen Long since 2011, when she joined the collective Sangwoodgoon, a social movement opposed to the demolition of rural villages for a new high-speed railway to mainland China.
The one-time travel journalist’s art practice runs in tandem with her farming duties and is based on her close observation of the natural environment. Her works are exhibited widely and included in the Sigg Collection and housed in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
Laurent Gutierrez has a background in architecture and is a professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Design.
In 1997, a year after moving to Hong Kong from France, he co-founded MAP Office with Valérie Portefaix. A studio practice involved in projects incorporating both architecture and the visual arts, MAP Office has the distinction of being the only maker to have represented Hong Kong in both the art and the architecture Venice biennales.
In 2021, MAP Office announced that it would set up a self-sustainable residency called MAP Ocean on the island of Ishigaki, in Japan. Portefaix moved there in 2022, and Gutierrez, who remains in Hong Kong, co-founded R-Farm, a regenerative farm about a 15-minute drive from Sangwoodgoon that is focused on growing vegetables for the local community.
Earlier this year, during a brief lull in between harvesting and sowing, Lo and Gutierrez sat down to discuss the joys and tribulations of being artist-farmers in Hong Kong.
