video production by tommytfortwo

 

Artist statement:
Curiosity Box is an on-going project. It started from my 3 months trip to America in 2013 which included, objects collecting, drawings, writings, video, cooking and travelling etc as the medium for expressing thoughts that provoked during the trip.

In the first phase, I gave up an artist residency and turned a New York apartment into a non-public and non-private space where I created things there. It’s also a place where I live and invite people to share. I consider the whole project is like a suitcase, where I expand the content by questioning, critiquing or playing with my situations. Second phase was happened in gallery space, Chinese Cultural Centre in San Francisco, 2months after my arrival New York. It included works from New York apartment and the 58hours train ride in the country, topping up with few days living in the gallery space to complete the setup.

A year after returning from U.S., in late 2014, I propose “Being Tourist in hometown” as the third phase of Curiosity Box. In this contradictory statement, I will stay away from family and spend one month in a local hotel. By visiting my hometown instead of travelling to Zurich for a residency, a “virtual” home and family members will be setup in Counter Space (Zurich) to make a possible cultural exchange, at the same time turning my hotel room in Hong Kong as a suitcase, collecting thoughts that made during that month, some “souvenir” or writing etc will send to my “family” in Zurich.

I have no ideas what will come up, maybe everything goes failure in this contradictory statement, but I think that’s what happened around me, and “re-visiting” hometown is crucial to my generation, as I have strong sense of lost, or some people may say it’s a born of a new city.

 

Lam Tung-pang

Feb 2015, at home