Missed Art Month? 5 reasons to visit Tai Kwun now, from a film on obsolete Hong Kong tech featuring Josie Ho, to retro neon and floral installations, and an outdoor production by Tsai Ming-liang

Mar 29 , 2024

The Monk from Tang Dynasty, part of Tai Kwun’s Spotlight: A Season of Performing Arts programme. Photos: Handout

Sarah Morris has ETC, a film on the eponymous outdated tech featuring Josie Ho – and screened alongside the painting Lippo [Paul Rudolph], named after the Admiralty skyscrapers and their designer

Filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang’s outdoor production The Monk from Tang Dynasty is inspired by the classic 16th century novel Journey to the West, and stars film actor Lee Kang-sheng

Since opening in 2018 following a decade-long revitalisation, Tai Kwun has been reborn as one of Hong Kong’s most important cultural hubs.

Not to be outdone by Art Basel, Art Central and the variety of other art-related events taking place in town throughout March and April, Tai Kwun is presenting its own striking line-up of works.

Everyone’s favourite former jail is pulling out all the stops to showcase a multitude of artworks across disciplines – from dance and theatre to film and large-scale installations. The works cover a variety of themes, from the history and evolution of Hong Kong itself, to sustainability and metahumanist explorations.

Here are some of Tai Kwun’s must-see programmes coming up in the next few weeks.

1. Spotlight: A Season of Performing Arts

The Monk from Tang Dynasty, part of Spotlight: A Season of Performing Arts

Running through April 28 is a series of five performance pieces that comprise Tai Kwun’s Spotlight programme for 2024. Now in its fourth edition, the interdisciplinary series allows artists to “break free from conceptions of space and form to explore fresh possibilities”.

Between March 29 and April 1, acclaimed Taiwan-based, Malaysian director Tsai Ming-liang’s The Monk from Tang Dynasty comes to Hong Kong having shown in Brussels, Vienna and Taipei. The outdoor production follows Buddhist monk Xuanzang, famous for his Silk Road pilgrimage to India, whose travels inspired the classic 16th century novel, Journey to the West. Exploring themes of loneliness and determination, the production blends art, theatre and painting, and stars actor Lee Kang-sheng and painter Kao Jun-honn.

The performance installation Labyss sees the audience interact with a fictional Danish start-up using technology to store memories

From April 13 to 28, the series pivots to the hypermodern with productions Retry Login and Labyss. The former invites participants to sit in an individually enclosed space to chat with “possibly other sentient beings or machine intelligence” during a 45-minute session. The latter sees the audience interact with a fictional Danish start-up that uses technology to store memories via sensory experience that will be “absorbed and regenerated into a strange emerging collective life form”.

Memory Trace of Western Chamber, a work inspired by the ancient play Romance of the Western Chamber

Dance artist Elsie Chau Kam-ngai and choreographer Ong Yong Lock present Memory Trace of Western Chamber between April 18 to 20. The dance theatre piece is centred on Cui Yingying, the protagonist of the Yuan dynasty play Romance of the Western Chamber.