Project Oikwan
Left ©2023 Elizabeth Briel ‘Terrestria’
Right ©2023 June Mung ‘Wet Cut Blow'
Left ©2023 Kurt Tong ‘Half Price Seats’
Right ©2023 Sharon Lee ‘Rock Paper Scissors’
Left ©2023 Siu Ding & Shishi 'Ritsu Aomame'
Right ©2023 Billy Potts ‘Oi Kwan Regulars’
Left ©2023 The Ink Trail ‘Oi Kwan Barbers / Trust’
Right ©2023 Monique Yim ‘There Was Light’
Left ©2023 Abby Au Yeung, ‘Portal’
Right ©2023 Daniel Nahmias / Studio Zaz ‘Exhibition design for Harmony in Diversity – Connecting the Metropolis by In-betweens Architecture Exhibition 2023’
Left ©2023 Wong Wei Him ‘Between the Acts’
Right ©2023 Christine He & Jin Heng 'Waiting'
Hong Kong’s streets inhabit a fascinating co-existence of old and new deeply woven into the urban fabric, it weaves through the architecture and shapes its unique districts. Change has always been a driving force and this city continues to dance its movement of disappearance, now at an unimaginable speed due to urban renewal and beautification, economic downturn, an evolving job market, and an aging population. We are witness to a crucial moment of vanishing culture and traditional trades – a sunset of great importance.
Hong Kong’s streets inhabit a fascinating co-existence of old and new deeply woven into the urban fabric, it weaves through the architecture and shapes its unique districts. Change has always been a driving force and this city continues to dance its movement of disappearance, now at an unimaginable speed due to urban renewal and beautification, economic downturn, an evolving job market, and an aging population. We are witness to a crucial moment of vanishing culture and traditional trades – a sunset of great importance.
Oi Kwan Barbers in Wan Chai is a 60-year-old traditional Cantonese alleyway barbershop, one of the last handful of its kind remaining. Started by the late Master Lau, his son Mark inherited his father’s craftsmanship and maintains the shop in its original form. This is the team’s ground zero whereby they will invite artists and designers to create artwork in response to it. They will also digitally archive the shop so that one day it may still exist in virtual reality even if lost to the physical one.
Together, we tell the story of a place, a craft, and a family – through exhibitions, artist talks, performances, workshops and books. Project Oikwan proposes an alternative methodology for urban preservation and archiving of our collective memory, a journey in heritage innovation.
Project Oikwan is a collaboration between Oi Kwan Barbers, In-between Architects, and Cheung Chau Wave.
- 2023
- Grantee: In-between Archiects / Cheung Chau Wave / Oi Kwan Barbers
Wong Wei-him (b.1975, Vancouver) Graduated from the School of Architecture at McGill University with a Bachelor degree in Science in 1999 and from The University of Hong Kong with a Master degree in Architecture in 2001, Wong was trained as an architect and established In-between Architects, a design studio based in Hong Kong in 2010. His photography practice draws inspiration from space, architecture, and also daily life on the street. Wong has participated in group exhibitions including Island(ed) at WMA (2022), “Your Shadow by the Sea” (Window & Alley 2022); “Fake” at CTypeMag (Thailand, 2022), and “Portal” at Inter-Island Festival (Hong Kong, 2021); shortlisted in the Italian Street Photo Festival 2020, WMA Masters Award 2019 and FotoFête by Asia Society Hong Kong (2016), and got his works published on international photo magazines. He is excited to be working with Mark Lau and Christina Brandt Jensen on Project Oikwan.
Mark Lau Ka-Shing was born in Hong Kong in 1990 and grew up in a traditional hairdressing family. He majored in photography, taking commercial photography as his early career. At one point Mark needed to make a choice between his family business and his dream, he chose to safeguard his father's business.
With the encouragement of his loved ones, Mark is now practicing as a community barber and exploring art through different media and collaborations. He introduces the art of traditional barbers from the perspective of an inheritor of this craftsmanship, aiming to preserve this traditional old industry of Hong Kong. Mark also participates in various community platforms to support the local artists and people in need in society during his spare time.
Christina Brandt Jensen is a trained choreographer and brings this background into her curatorial approach. At the core is love for creative expression, community and creating memorable experiences for audiences in unusual spaces. She has been practicing event-making since her early days as a dance student in London with the Explorer Collective, bringing art performance to clubs and galleries, leading to many years of directing site-specific dance in Hong Kong and then crossing over to multi-artform festivals for Cheung Chau Wave - again held in non-gallery or performance venues.
Together with collaborator Martin Vognsen, she won the Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award in 2011 where they investigated abandoned spaces in Hong Kong through music and dance. In the last 5 years she has been curating certain exhibitions at Blue Lotus Gallery under the guidance of Sarah Greene and this period has deepened her passion and understanding of the medium of photography. She is excited to be working with Wong Wei Him and Mark Lau on the Oi Kwan Barbers project as it bring her 'home' to working in sites that have an important story to tell.