Ladies First
In the first of a loosely connected series, ‘Gender & Space’ makes some of Hong Kong’s most invisible women visible again.
If the gawdawful few years since COVID hit gave us anything, it was a renewed – okay, often straight-up new – sense of history, accountability, justice and acknowledgement. There’s been a greater understanding (or willingness to try and understand) the massive intersection of gender, race, class, legacy, nature, economics and a hundred other elements that have conspired to put us where are, socially, right now. And those “dissenting” voices mumbling into their entitled tea about how it’s “all gone too far” and “we’re tipping into reverse [fill in the blank-ism]” can take a seat. Maybe read up on how it’s not about taking anything from anyone; it’s about recognising everyone else’s silent voices. To whit: Gender & Space.
Curated by Dr Anita Chung, who heads up the heritage part of the Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts, Gender & Space is a text-heavy, aesthetically engaging stroll through the Central Police Station complex between 1841 and 1941 from a female perspective. Using photographs, architectural materials, archival documents, journals and letters this gendered interpretation of a typically masculine space makes the women who were invisible for a century visible again, and in doing so recontextualises this particular space; this alternative to the familiar mainstream male-centric chronicle fills in more than a few gaps in the historical record. Let’s face it: Women have always been around the old cop shop – as spouses of the men who worked for the force, as inmates, as staff, visitors and everything in between. So where are they?
“Gender & Space is designed as a safe and reflective space for engaging in meaningful discussion on gender and social equity,” says Dr Chung in summing up the exhibition. “We seek to understand history from multiple perspectives, acknowledging not only the different forms of inequality, but also their underlying causes. It is crucial to examine the structures in place and the interlocking systems of power that determine who is free or unfree, powerful or powerless, and dominant or subordinate. Gender & Space shows that gender identity is complex, multi-layered and ever-changing, and why we must challenge discriminatory practices and address the needs and aspirations of all members of society to bring about positive change.”
So what to expect? Lots and lots and lots of reading, for one. The exhibit itself feels a little like an installation of installations, particularly with the trio of oblong and separate mirrored sub-galleries that hold up as more than a few intensely Instagrammable spots. But in breaking down the activities in Central Police Station into three clusters – the cops and staff, their families and other relations, the prisoners and their keepers – Chung & Co. turn a glaring spotlight on just how much of the building, of Hollywood Road, and of Hong Kong’s past has been overlooked. It also tells us a lot about where we’ve been and where we’re going.
Anyone who’s been to Robben Island in Cape Town will recognise how a modern lens can make you scratch your head. On mid-century Robben, inmates were categorised by race, and Japanese inmates were lumped in with “whites”. Huh? Similarly, one of the curiosities unearthed by Gender & Space is that the women incarcerated in the Central complex – the vast majority of them sex workers – worked in brothels categorised by race, just of the clients. It was a practice that clearly spoke to colonialism and internalised racism, and it’s just one of dozens of threads that eventually weave a tapestry of life in and around the compound at the time, and beyond. That there are few to zero photos of the women wardens who worked the prison says plenty. That there was a landlord class of “protected” women who’ve barely been acknowledged in the past 100 years says more. The multiple reflective surfaces simply put a bow on the exhibit’s raison d’être of making visitors think about themselves and 2022 as well. For anyone who’s actively considered the ideas, or anyone who has been subjected to the kind of power dynamics that keep women in the margins, Gender & Space won’t hold any surprises. What is does do, quite elegantly, is illustrate those dynamics in a single, clear timeline and distil the point.
For some of us it’s always more fulfilling to bounce ideas off other living, breathing people, so Gender & Space is offering up a chance to talk about the subject publicly. Starting on November 17, the programme’s Gender Salon will be just that: an intellectual spot for wrestling with issues as far-ranging as nationality (“South Asian Women of Hong Kong”, November 24), sex trafficking (“Sex, Crime, and Punishment: On Sex Work and Human Trafficking”, November 26) and gender equality (“Changemakers: Gender Equality and Social Inclusion”, December 17) along with seven other topics in its Dialogues series. Talks are free of charge.
Finally, Gender & Space isn’t quite done yet. Recognising that the female gender is just one among many, starting in December, Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III will explore alternative gender expressions, queer mythologies, and “practices of the body” from the perspective of new voices and under the banner of Tai Kwun’s “arts” section. Myth Makers opens on 24 December and runs to April 10, 2023 at JC Contemporary. — CTS
Gender & Space
Where: Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts, Block 01 Duplex Studio
Hours: Through January 15, 2023, 11am to 7pm daily
Closed: N/A
Details: Gender & Space, www.taikwun.hk