When I first walked into the exhibition, wood, plants, statues, moths, axes, resin, bronze mirrors, a series of various materials and images intruded unguardedly in front of me. An uninterrupted, metronome-like sound came to my ears, full of discordance. It made me think about the meaning of “Rootstock,” which I found out from the internet means the first process of plant reproduction, the grafting and gluing together. If we put this in the context of the whole exhibition, does its symbolic meaning relate only to the historical, cultural, and personal identity that Tang Kwong San has been exploring as in the past?
The name “Rootstock” comes from the horticultural propagation technique of “grafting,” where the upper part of the graft is called the “scion” and the lower part is called the “rootstock.” There are two particularly important elements in the exhibition, which serve as a bridge between the artworks, the first of which is the Bauhinia. The Bauhinia is a sterile plant, and thus has to be reproduced by artificial means, and grafting is, in simple terms, one of the ways to do this.
Bauhinia Fables
Bauhinia trees are now found all over the city but the Bauhinia, which is the flower of Hong Kong, is unexpectedly unable to reproduce and is considered a sterile plant. Tracing back its history, a priest found it in the wild and grafted it, “I think this history matches very well with some of the fables in this exhibition because this story has elements that are very close to fables." Many local artists have approached the subject of the Bauhinia in order to elaborate and extend issues of identity and locality, but more often than not, the focus is on the relationship between its flowers and fruits.
"One of the reasons why this exhibition is called “Rootstock” is that it focuses on the “grafting” part of the plant, which I think is even more related to its original history, especially since the Bauhinia is sterile and needs “grafting” to reproduce.” As a hybrid, the Bauhinia reflects Hong Kong's complex identity and, to a certain extent, its social vulnerability. Hong Kong itself is a city of immigrants, Chinese and foreigners, a city of multiculturalism, complex history and immigrant backgrounds, and Hong Kong people most often explore the search for identity among foreign places, foreign countries and foreign cultures.
Read full interview here --
專訪鄧廣燊 • 個展《砧木》 — PANDA CHOW STUDIO
