Videotage is pleased to present Shameplant in Glory Hole, a solo exhibition of Joseph Chen. The exhibition features the artist’s multifaceted works, including videos, images, audio, installations, and archival materials. These works result from artistic research on personal archives that explore the relationship between matter and time.

Shameplant in Glory Hole presents the final phase of the eponymous research project by the artist. It originated from retrieving abandoned data from second-hand hard drive disks found in the Sham Shui Po flea market while drawing inspiration from philosopher Bernard Stiegler’s theory on the inseparable relationship between technology and memory.

In three years, the artist conducted continuous recovery and research of data in personal archives. The textual, audial, and visual data have been transformed from official documents and daily consumption records through the artistic interventions. The artist juxtaposes these externalized memories of others with his own uninscribable, unmemorable or unforgettable internal memories in Videotage’s exhibition space, where he uses artificial and organic materials, fluids, lights, and digital objects to resurrect a private and intimate temporal and spatial experience.

A medium to people’s memories, the exhibition stands between voyeurism and exhibitionism. In the social media and dataveillance era, Shameplant in Glory Hole invites viewers to peek through, eavesdrop on, sneak in, and stalk the micro-histories of familiar strangers.

In the exhibition, each piece is loosely connected to a habit, dialogue, ritual, trauma, trip, or moment that recollects the speakable/unspeakable and visible/invisible stories. For the artist, summoning the pasts of others is reflexive. The phantom possessing the artworks also activates the viewers’ imagination to collage, montage, and assemble an intertwined sensory and emotional order between themselves and the exhibition time-space.

About Shameplant in Glory Hole

Initiated by Joseph Chen in 2019, Shameplant in Glory Hole is a three-year art project that articulates through archival research, exhibitions and performances, multimedia creations, and cross-platform collaborations. The project focuses on second-hand memories and experiences of used commodities such as harddisks sold in the Sham Shui Po flea market, while conceiving the flea market as an alternative space for artistic practices.

Seeking to go beyond personal research, Joseph Chen partnered with Castiel Wong to form the art initiative, Virtue Village. They looked to expand the project into a dialogue with other artists and the Sham Shui Po community through organizing 活體洞, a two-day exhibition and live art performance in a truck parked in the flea market on 1 and 2 May 2021. The event invited 36 artists from Hong Kong, China, the USA, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and Singapore to participate and co-organized performance sessions with The Originals.

錄映太奇榮幸呈獻香港藝術家陳敬元首個個展 ——「在尋歡洞的含羞草」，展出陳敬元多面向的作品，包括錄像、圖像、裝置及文獻材料等等。是次作品作為陳氏對個人文獻庫的藝術性研究成果，探索物質與時間的關係。

「在尋歡洞的含羞草」呈現陳敬元與展覽同名的廣泛資料搜集與研究計劃的最後階段。計劃源於陳氏在深水埗地攤發現二手硬盤並對其進行數據恢復，同時參考了哲學家Bernard Stiegler對科技與記憶之間不可分割的關係的理論。

在三年間，藝術家對個人文獻庫的數據進行反覆的修復與研究，通過藝術性介入改變並超越文字、聲音及視覺數據作為正式文件與日常消費物之本質。藝術家運用人造與有機物料、液體、光線與數碼物，將他人外置化的記憶與自身不可銘記、不可回憶、不可忘懷的內在記憶並置於錄映太奇展覽空間內，在這情境中復活一種私人與親密的時空經驗。

展覽將打開一道大門讓觀眾感知與感受輪迴再生的記憶，並邀請觀眾窺視、偷聽、潛入、跟蹤熟悉的陌生人的微歷史，如同跨越在社交媒體與數據監控年代中偷窺與暴露之間模糊的門檻。

在展覽中，每件作品都若隱若現地聯繫着個人的習慣、對話、儀式、創傷、旅程或時刻，重拾可言說又不可言說、可看見又不可看見的過去。藝術家深信召喚他人的過去為一個反身性行為，附身在藝術品中的殘影開啟觀眾想像，將他們自身與展覽時空拼貼、剪接並組合成交織的感官與情感秩序。

關於「在尋歡洞的含羞草」

「在尋歡洞的含羞草」是陳敬元於2019年發起的一個為期三年的研究計劃，以多元形式呈現一系列文獻研究、展覽、行為、多媒體創作以及跨平台合作。計劃關注深水埗地攤的二手商品的記憶與經歷，特別從硬碟入手，但不限於此，同時亦探索地攤作為另類藝術空間的可能性。

陳氏與黃榮鋒合作成立藝術小組「真善美村」，通過策劃「活體洞」拓展與其他藝術家及深水埗社群的對話，並在2021年5月1日至2日於深水埗地攤停泊一輛貨車，在貨車內外舉行為期兩日的展覽與現場行為藝術。「活體洞」邀請了三十六位來自香港、中國內地、美國、英國、德國、瑞士、日本、澳洲及新加坡的藝術家參與，而現場行為藝術與正常小孩共同策劃。

Exhibition
Date: 19/6-17/7/2021
Time: Open Daily / 12 pm – 9 pm
Venue: Videotage, Unit 13, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Rd, To Kwa Wan, KLN

Opening Reception and Performance
Date & Time: 19/6, Saturday, 7 pm
Performance Artist: 許敖山 Nerve

展覽
日期：19/6-17/7/2021
時間：每天12 pm – 9 pm
地址：香港九龍土瓜灣馬頭角道 63 號牛棚藝術村13 號 錄映太奇

開幕禮與表演
日期與時間：6月19日 星期六, 7 pm
表演藝術家： 許敖山 Nerve