This is such an endearing instance, a great manifestation of our gratitude, to end the first great school year of our school! Tsing Chau campus, we will miss you definitely. P.S. I am in a bright yellow shirt at the far back. Can you follow my steps?
I feel I am at the edge of the end nearly, of blogging. If you are still here, maybe you would like to read my recent review on Hua-yen Sutra (華嚴經) of Zuni: here (only in Chinese).
Well, I've also added the link to the new blog of a cultural friend Winnie (film person) on the listing. Enjoy.
The kidults of the School of Creativity organized themselves into special ambassadors to make part of Hong Kong people's lives less "boring". Last Saturday at the heart of the busy Mongkok.
We teachers are inevitably happy to see them in such motivated and organized manner. The process has been certainly more assuring than the result for me. Transformation took place when they revealed their latent faces of leaders and supportive team members. So efficiently.
Well, one can definitely criticize more than easily for the resulting happening performances, painting activities, band sound, etc, for their rawness and spontaneity. But what form could be stronger to convey their enthusiasm and passion, relating the objective to invite new members to join us entirely self-initiated?
If I had read this before, I might not have prepared my 60-slide powerpoint presentation at the EduCulture Global Cooperation Workshop in Gwangju today. Pretty aggressive I know.
Believe me though, it's not bad; if only one word can express so many.
The School is starting to run more smoothly and I have got more time to think about my own creative initiatives. Glad this coincides with the preview of the result of my last collaborated work with Jamsen, The Field of Consciousness.
This is the third piece of the series of "12 Dependent Arisings" and is actually a bit different from the previous two ("Lightless Ring of Angels" and "Tree of Actions called K"). Because of Jamsen the director, or the video format, it's more on the conceptual side. But frankly, I have not watched the finished video work yet, so I've got nothing to say for now.
The invitation image is designed by Pollux@20beans.
I came back from what I called an "illegitimate trip". It was supposed to be the kind of a personal itinerary... Finally it became a heavily cultural experience with ample exposure to the artistic heritage from the Medieval Europe.
I have been tempted to do a research on the concept of "collage" but in terms of a larger sense of interpretation, trying to put all "juxtaposition" in artistic creation into the category. For example, Peter Brueghel the elder put Virgin Mary and the new-born in a setting of 15th-century Flemish village, depicting a lot of everyday life of the ordinary people with the saints among them. Another way to think about it, is Hieronymus Bosch's monstrous creation of those mixtures of human's body and animals' features.
I am interested not on the creative means (as termed as "collage") by themselves, but their relation to the mentality and even spiritual notions regarding their contemporary societies. Even how the different panels of the altar pieces from 11th-century onwards imposed overwhelming attraction to me in this trip... Renaissance, for the first time in my life, seems very evil, as many spiritual depiction disappeared suddenly walking from the galleries of pre-renaissance period to the new age of men.
Why? I am in a spiritual mood to contemplate. Am I illegitimate, or insane.
Speaking for the Bookclub of the Chinese University was the first challenge in the new year for me. I started revising the Lamrim and the story of Tsongkhapa, the 14th-century master, for this introductory talk on Tibetan Buddhism a month ago, but the richness of the content still made it almost impossible to structure the 2-hour sharing sensibly.
I was surprised but happy to see the crowd interested in the subject. A bit more nervous than usual. Again, probably not because of the audience, but the content which is too profound to grasp in a single talk. Some friends said the Q&A session was good. I have yet got the time to review my performance, CU has already put the recording (streaming video) on their website. I heard it won't stay there long, give me some comments if you are interested. Or come to the new Lamrim tutorial every Thursday starting from 25 Jan.
A couple of reviews and articles on this year's Directors' Lab (including my small experiment with "Waiting for Godot") are just posted on Cattle Depot Theatre Newsletter .
Seeing this photo, I have to correct what I wrote in last post about not being on stage for long. (No, I did not wear dress again, see here.)
A long time I have not been "on stage". Here is an image (taken by student) from the very small performance I did with a few SC teachers during the first Open Day / project-week presentation two weeks ago. I reflect now I had indeed made no critical statement in this performance, despite the theme, Paths, which carried a glimsp of our reflection of the teaching/learning experience.
Some comments made me extremely alert these days about what I should/could do as a mentor myself ... and create as an artist. Whatever we do, we are setting a standard.
Art may be more about freedom of mind where beauty, criticism, fun, sensation... are the keys. Reflections, of oneself, of people and things around, however temporary of a nature, compose a map.
I have been tempted to do a research on the concept of "collage" but in terms of a larger sense of interpretation, trying to put all "juxtaposition" in artistic creation into the category. For example, Peter Brueghel the elder put Virgin Mary and the new-born in a setting of 15th-century Flemish village, depicting a lot of everyday life of the ordinary people with the saints among them. Another way to think about it, is Hieronymus Bosch's monstrous creation of those mixtures of human's body and animals' features.
A couple of reviews and articles on this year's Directors' Lab (including my small experiment with "Waiting for Godot") are just posted on Cattle Depot Theatre Newsletter .
20 Beans + A Box (art group)
Squidfingers (Pattern, adjusted)