Exploration

Jan. 28th, 2014

It’s pretty rare that I take time off from the studio, as I find having this much time to focus on my work again is a great opportunity. That being said, I’ve realized that I haven’t done too much exploration of the urban and rural areas outside of my daily commute. Like when in studio, it’s amazing what you can find when you dedicate time to something – and especially if it gives right back to your work. As you’ll hopefully see in the following pictures, Hong Kong is so visually diverse. You see it all here – the modern city core, the old villages, the farms, the middle class residential life, all somehow within a conjoining transit system. It feels like a collage of different time periods, with entirely different people throughout. Outside of the more populated areas and into the villages:

Some funny signage on route to a village

The bus stop, marked by the flag

Dogs are usually strays here, though I would assume this one is not

Can you see them all?

Into the more modern areas

In the urban areas it's not uncommon to find outdoor gyms!

'descend into horse ride position'

Sundays here are great. They are the one day the local care workers typically from the Philippines have off. You'll see the workers gathering in parks, streets, or anywhere they can find. They'll be gathered for outdoor Church, or dancing on the streets.

Night time exploration

Back to the studio, making kite frames out of plastic rods and zip ties

Finito. After some testing, I determined the fabric was far to loosely wrapped around the frame to fly

So onto a new, lighter weight frame (took about five minutes to construct this one, you get faster at things once you've done some preliminary work)

Time to switch focus back to the plexiglass work for a moment - but first, dunch (lunch + dinner)! This meat mountain cost me 20 HKD (under 3 Canadian dollars)

Back to work - reusing the ruined original to trace out the new one. Smart right?