VENICE.- M+, at the West Kowloon Cultural District, and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council are presenting the exhibition Shirley Tse: Stakeholders, Hong Kong in Venice as Hong Kong’s Collateral Event at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. As the fourth collaboration between M+ and the HKADC, this exhibition is a milestone for Hong Kong contemporary art on one of the world’s most prestigious international platforms.

The exhibition is curated by Christina Li, an internationally active curator based in Hong Kong and Amsterdam, as Guest Curator, with Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial, and Chief Curator, M+, acting as Consulting Curator. This is the second time M+ has appointed and engaged a guest curator from the rapidly growing community of contemporary art practitioners. In the previous edition of the Biennale in 2017, Ying Kwok was the guest curator for the solo presentation of the work of Samson Young.

Over the past two decades, the Los Angeles–based Hong Kong artist Shirley Tse has addressed the various meanings and possible interpretations of materials and things. Her sculptural practice has evolved from considering plastics as the prime signifier of globalisation through circulation, standardisation, and industrialisation to examining plastic as an adjective, and the resonance of plasticity, movement, and multiplicity in contemporary society.

The exhibition in Venice presents a new body of site-responsive work by Tse that contemplates a model for how we relate to each other, in ways that counter the logic that has produced our tumultuous times. In line with the overarching theme of this edition of the Biennale—titled May You Live in Interesting Times and curated by Ralph Rugoff—Tse uses the medium of sculpture to translate her thought process into physical form with two large-scale works: Negotiated Differences and Playcourt. Her work explores both horizontality and verticality, highlighting the unique spatial qualities of the exhibition site on the Campo della Tana, which includes an interior and an open courtyard. Negotiated Differences is a sprawling, rhizome-like installation of 3D-printed joints and hand-turned wooden forms that stretches across all the rooms of the space. Balusters, handrails, bowling pins, and abstract objects are connected by wooden, metal, and plastic elements, bringing together craft, mechanical, and digital technologies into an integrated whole.

Occupying the courtyard, Playcourt comprises sculptural amalgams of equipment and anthropomorphic forms that draw the eye skyward. The installation transforms the enclosure into an improvised badminton court, partly inspired by the artist’s memory of growing up in Hong Kong, and emphasises the negotiation between people and space that is a fundamental component of play. This negotiation is at the heart of Stakeholders; foregrounding the ideas of affect, empathy, and ethics, the exhibition proposes a space to reflect on how we can come to terms with the unforeseen actions that define our relationships with one another.