Man Mei-to’s solo The Distance of Space faded to white after 3 weeks of “zen” presence at Floating Projects. For those who missed the chance encounter of her body, mind and thing-power, several visitors — Evelyn Char, Yang Yeung and Eddie Cheung — have preserved for us precious impressions. The show may now live on in the minds of everyone striving to catch it and contain it in words that seek to match their mind’s eye. Please leave more comments. 文美桃個展《彼岸之地》在「據點。句點」閒散的工場地輕袅的懸浮了三個星期；懸浮是輕袅的，存在卻是盤根著地，有板有眼，分寸有度。淡出之後，閒散的藝術工場復貌。如果你真的錯過了，還可以因著幾位有心訪客的留言去想像這個本來就挑戰語言再現的作品群。反正，這作品「天生」的引發文字創作，沒有言辭可絕對的把它「整合」，許或能活潑的延續它跳脫的存在與呼吸吧。請繼續留言… (Linda C.H. Lai)
**Man Mei-to, ADC Emerging Artist grant recipient, exhibiting at FP, 14 April – 6 May 2018, curated by Wong Chun-hoi**
查映嵐 …
周末的起心肝去 Floating Projects 看了文美桃個展《彼岸之地》，很喜歡那種sensibility… 似乎在尋索一種身體的地形學；如果有聲音，會是低迴的呢喃，但話語並不私密或全然內向，而是以髮絲般幼細的通路，向城市的身體髮膚延展…
Evelyn Char …
That weekend, I finally gathered myself to make a special trip to Floating Projects at Wong Chuk Hang to visit Man Mei-to’s Distance of Space. I like the sensibility of the show… as if the artist is in search of a kind of cartography of the body. If I may compare the show to a soundscape, one hears murmurs swirling low, and yet there is nothing private, secretive or introverted. Such murmurs follow fine vascular passages like threads of hair, creeping in all directions through the city’s body and ever expanding… (translated from Chinese by Linda Lai)
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Yang Yeung …
Always energizing to see artists trying different modes of expression, different ways of letting a material guide their (our?) fleeting being – stubbornly, humbly, attentively, despite perplexities. A curve of an elbow? A cavity between bones?…of particular but unnamed human bodies, moulded to become ceramic emblems of nature (as human nature) and as imperfect copies of nature (as unrecognizable fragments). Some equivalence between the artist’s reality in touch with the sky, sea, and land, is drawn with the reality of nature compromised by total urbanization in Hong Kong – lost islands are freed by being suspended; water in gutters are relevant by being contained in jars as specimens. Man describes the overall tone of her solo as grey; I wonder if it’s more like a “fish-belly white” (魚肚白 as in colloquial Cantonese) that may or may not want dawn to come. Her sensitivity towards contours remains, as always, pointed and uncompromising.
楊陽 …
向來看到藝術家們試圖尋找新的表達模式我都會欣喜而興致勃勃。以文美桃這次個展來說，就是以不同的方法去讓物料引導她的（也許是我們的）浮動的存活，固執地、沉著地、凝神貫注的，也不管帶有多少的困惑。那是一隻臂肘的弧度麼？是骨頭之間的空穴嗎？明明是具體確切的身體局部卻無以名狀，由藝術家模塑成陶瓷做的符號，標記自然之本（也是人性之本）。可這些（不難辨認的）複製本卻絕不介懷於是否完美。藝術家的現實與海天大地相接，多少猶如自然的現實因香港的城市化給妥協了。失去了的島嶼被淩空吊掛而得到解放；溝水因被化成樣本在展示瓶子裡忽然變得貼題而管用。文美桃形容她的個展的整體調子是灰的，我反覺得它可能更接近魚肚白，天快亮卻不想大白。無可置疑的是，她對輪廓、周線的敏感堅定不移，尖銳而不妥協。(黎肖嫻中譯)
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張煒森 …
… … 文美桃的作品，「身體」往往直接以驅殻或間接以行動的姿態呈現於作品上。島嶼、水樣本、身體成為碎片，然後轉化成一道道的風景，也是不易察覺的能量與維度，穩定的狀態與藝術家心頭裡想說的話都是一種不著痕跡的喃喃自語，猶如手腕微微跳動的脈搏。要怎樣帶動觀者感受物象背後的種種？或從中能氾起怎樣的漣漪？則需要看策展人如何鋪墊。
Cheung Wai-sum Eddie …
The “body” in Man Mei-to’s works comes to us directly as carcasses or indirectly as the postures of actions. Islets, water samples and body parts are fragments, then transformed into a scenery and many more, perceivable to those who pay attention to their specific dimensions and energies. Stasis of the works holds still and quiet the artist’s private murmurs and soliloquy, like pulses on the wrist, felt but not heard. And here’s a question for the artist: how to take the visitors through material appearances to what is concealed, or perhaps to just grasp a stir of thoughts. To the curator: how to enhance and how to spatialize. (translated from Chinese by Linda Lai)
Mao . Lake / Hair. Needle. Salt. Stone. Water. Wax Dimension variable / 2015
I can stay here, when I feel tried. Ceramics. Cement. Video Dimension variable 2018
Water | Puddle on ground – Hong Kong Adhesive tape, Aluminum, Glass, Light, Number label Puddle on ground, Rubber-band Dimension variable 2017
The disappeared island and the body of tree. Iron. Charcoal Dimension variable 2018Dimension variable / 2018
Related post: http://floatingprojectscollective.net/events/the-distance-of-space-man-mei-to-solo-exhibition/
