‘Once I Wake Up, My Body is Old’, a solo exhibition by Lee Kai Chung, is the finale of the project The Retrieval, Restoration and Predicament, which Lee conceived around the concept of ‘Transition’ for the WMA Commission grant (2018). It is preceded by ‘I Could Not Recall How I Got Here’ shown at WMA Space in 2019. The latest exhibition will be on view at WMA Space from November 12th to December 6th.

A highlight of the exhibition is the launch of I Could Not Recall How I Got Here, a work that encapsulates the blurring of geographical, temporal and individual boundaries in the artist’s project. Six narrators will read, in different languages, from the scripts of the six characters in the book—a young Japanese wife who visits her husband in Hong Kong, a Chinese grave keeper, a British intelligence officer, and the three characters who appear in the 30-minute video. 

In 2017, WMA launched a crowd-sourced documentary film project, ‘1 July 2017—A Day in Transition’, from which more than 200 videos were gathered from the public. Through juxtaposing these videos, the current exhibition aims to present the dialogues and discussions that have been going on as WMA sets up the WMA video archive. When facilitating accessibility to the video archive, we are inviting more vocabularies and references regarding the categorisation and understanding of the videos in this archive: What are the narrative powers of these precious videos submitted by the public, other than being mere ‘footage’ of documentary? What is the urgency of recording the moment with moving image? These are, perhaps, the first two of some fundamental questions for our contemplation in the crowd-sourcing and video-archiving process.

The WMA Open Photo Contest Exhibition will be extended until 31 March 2019. The exhibition, curated by Hilda Chan and Iven Cheung, will showcase photographic works of the 3 winners for the annual theme “Transition” including Caleb FUNG, Suet-sum LAI, and SHEK Chun Yin and 7 finalists including CHEUNG Siu Hoi, KOU Choi Sin, LO Yuen Ching, SIU Wai Hang, Mono TUNG Chiu On, Beatrice WONG and WONG Sanders. 

The WMA Open was created to serve as a public platform for discussion and a springboard for social transformation. The WMA Open Photo Contest 2018, themed “Transition”, received close to 340 entries for this cycle. A panel of judges selected ten finalists and also three winners out of ten finalists.

The winner of this year’s WMA Masters and the recipient of the WMA Commission were announced on the 14 April, 2018 at the WMA opening ceremony. YIM Sui-fong’s The Unlocked Space won the the WMA Masters and received a cash prize of HK$250,000. LEE Kai-chung is the WMA Commission recipient. LEE will receive HK$250,000 grant that contribute towards the production of his proposal and a public event featuring the completed work, which will be given a place in the WMA Collection.