Law Yuk Mui

Interview by Kat Herriman

Law Yuk Mui meanders through Hong Kong. Her work does too. Meditating on the island landscape and all its implications, her practice uses everything at its disposal to create exhibition-sized mood envelopes—airtight enough to hold the emotional frequencies, views, and stories she captures during her sallies around the city. A sense of place is a central theme that is fiddled with, using its aesthetic allies, through installations in video and sound. Collaboration is also essential. In fact, the city itself is perhaps the artist’s biggest co-conspirator in the work. Law’s latest exhibition—“There is No One Singing on the River” at Oil Street Art Space—is no exception, honing in on the curiosity-piquing names of Hong Kong’s major water channels and using them as a springboard for looking at where geography and power overlap. While the contents of her work invoke serious subject matter, there is a humor to the way she researches that playfully tongues her own limits—and those of art. Recently shortlisted for the 2021 Foundwork Artist Prize, Law delves into her nomadic approach to art making and why Hong Kong is always her main character.

Kat Herriman (KH): When I meet artists who make movies, I always wonder, “Why didn't they want to be Hollywood directors?” What drew you to filmmaking and why do your videos require site-specific installations?

Law Yuk Mui (LYM): Actually, I started doing video work during my Master’s degree. Before, in my undergraduate study, I tried a lot of different mediums. During my Master’s studies, I enjoyed the atmosphere of going to the cinema—that area isolated from the outside world. I liked this feeling so much I started making it in my work.

KH: What kind of movies were you going to see during your Master’s program? Did you see this as an escape?

LYM: In Hong Kong, we all live with our family because the apartment rentals—maybe the same as in New York—are crazy expensive. So when I was in the university, of course, I also lived at the university. The cinema was this silent moment where I could think, and where I could just focus on one thing.

KH: The theater-as-envelope. Is Hong Kong a kind of envelope for you? So many of your works respond to its architecture and urbanism.

LYM: I would say I’m really fascinated by the landscape of Hong Kong because I live here. When I see this landscape, it’s not only about the scenery itself. It’s also about geopolitics and power. My work tries to construct the seascape of Hong Kong or the wheel of Victoria Harbor through people’s memories.

KH: When did this start?

LYM: In the work, Victoria East (2017). At that moment, I lived in Tseung Kwan O. It's actually a reclaimed land, where the government has slowly replaced the sea with earth. Every day when I walked in the city, I thought to myself: before the land is actually the sea. I went out, rented a boat, and then dropped my portable camera into the ocean. Even though I cannot make the sea, I can construct my experience of it.

Goodbye, See You Again, Victoria East, 2021

Photography

Image credit: Law Yuk Mui

KH: Water seems to be a theme in your work, and one that appears in many different forms. Why is it such a powerful muse for you?

LYM: I do not intend to use water to evoke emotion. Water evokes my emotion first. In Victoria East, or in my recent exhibition “Goodbye, See You Again, Victoria East” at Taipei Digital Art Centre, the idea to recreate the sea is actually, somehow, about my feelings of loss around being unable to return or go back. The topic of the sea evokes my emotion, so I try to make this same kind of experience for the audience, as well.

KH: So, it’s not that water is your muse, but more that you have an ongoing relationship. Do you want to talk about the current project and how water is operating inside of it?

LYM: My most recent project, There is No One Singing on the River, started from some research about a river in the Hong Kong New Territory area. Its former name is the River Indus, the same name as the river in India. I find it very interesting because several branches of the river—Jhelum (Tan Shan River), Beas (Sheung Yue River), and Sutlej (Shek Sheung River)—also duplicate other river names in India. I was thinking, "Why these names?" and that became the starting point for my research. When Hong Kong became part of the colonial area of the British, they sent an Indian illustrator to do some charts of the landscape and rivers. Maybe because of nostalgia, or thinking about his hometown, the illustrator named the rivers in Hong Kong the same names as those in India. I started to do my own field recording of these places and I used drones to map the river.

KH: Is the projection in the gallery a big quilt of all the different footage, so that you can see the whole thing at once?

LYM: Actually, the focus of the video is the shape of the river—how it goes, how it flows, a bird’s-eye view. I traced the river from early morning to sunset. I started from Hong Kong and then ended the video at the border of Hong Kong and Sham Chun, also known as Shenzhen. This river is interesting because at the end of it is the border between Hong Kong and China. I stopped at the border because I could not go further.

"The idea to recreate the sea is actually, somehow, about my feelings of loss around being unable to return or go back. The topic of the sea evokes my emotion, so I try to make this same kind of experience for the audience, as well."

River Atlas, 2021

Installation View

Image credit: Oil Street Art Space

KH: I'm imagining you tracing this river and the act feels very sculptural. Did it feel that way to you?

LYM: Yeah.

KH: Video-as-gesture! I wanted to talk about gesture as it relates to your piece, I learned to Walk in 1984, and I Learned to Tell Lies in 2021. The hands in the video—are they yours?

LYM: That work is really different from my others. My other work is long-term projects. Maybe I will work on each for a few years. I learned to Walk in 1984, and I Learned to Tell Lies in 2021 is more like a small idea I already had in mind. Maybe you know about the situation in Hong Kong; there is a lot of change, and also a lot of lies. I wanted to learn the logic of lying. One of my friends is an amateur magician, so I asked him to do an illusion trick. In Hong Kong, we have two different coin types. Before the handover, we had Queen Elizabeth with a flip side that had the number. The other has the city flower of Hong Kong, which is called Bauhinia, and the opposite side of that coin is the number two. I said to him, “Maybe you can do some illusion where one side is Queen Elizabeth, the other side is the flower.” I liked when he did it, because the hand gestures are really beautiful to me. After the performance, I asked, “Is magic an illusion or reality? Is magic a lie?” The embroidered text on the black shirt (that accompanies the work) is actually our conversation.

UnBox, 2022

Live performance by Jason JS Lee (Singapore) in the exhibition Goodbye, See You Again, Victoria East

Image credit : Taipei Digital Art Center

"When I do interviews, I always tell people that I'm not a studio artist because I cannot think and I don't get any inspiration when I stay in the studio. Actually, I don't have a studio, because I need stimulation. That is my way of creating work."

KH: And what about the smoke bomb your performer releases at the end of the video? It almost interrupts the coin trick.

LYM: It was unexpected, as were some of the props. He chose the scenery and directed how the trick looked in front of the camera. This kind of collaboration is interesting for me because I just told him, “I want a coin trick,” but how it looked was his idea.

When I do interviews, I always tell people that I'm not a studio artist because I cannot think and I don't get any inspiration when I stay in the studio. Actually, I don't have a studio, because I need stimulation. That is my way of creating work.

KH: I like the image of the artist as a field researcher. Does it ever feel scientific?

LYM: When I think about my intentions for field research, I sometimes feel like it’s a performance, because I intend to do something silly and then see what will happen.

KH: But we never see you perform.

LYM: My position is not emphasized in my work, because, for example, when I show people a recording, it is from my point of view, so I don't need to be physically there. The sun and the audio experience present you with my way of seeing and listening. This is how I manage my appearance in the work.

KH: Are the end results of your research ever disappointing?

LYM: I adopted field research as a method to generate ideas, but I don't think the artist’s role is to give an answer. Maybe it makes sense for other artists to present the research results as a deliverable in the exhibition. But, for me, I'm delivering an experience onsite of my experience in the field.

River Atlas, 2021

Installation View, close-up

Image credit: Oil Street Art Space

"I seldom do a narrative video because I like how memory can reconstruct the seascape of Hong Kong. I am not so fascinated by storytelling. I'm more focused on experience itself, which is a compilation of video, sound, and the installation. For me, this is a more holistic way to represent the idea."

KH: I noticed you tend to invest in long-term projects, as you said, and that your work is often serialized and split into chapters. Do narrative arcs help you align your thoughts and share them with others?

LYM: My work seldom has a strong narrative, even though From Whence the Waves Came is a story about my family. They came to Hong Kong in a little wooden boat that they made. It's also about my Vietnamese friend. He came to Hong Kong with his parents when he was very small.

I seldom do a narrative video because I like how memory can reconstruct the seascape of Hong Kong. I am not so fascinated by storytelling. I'm more focused on experience itself, which is a compilation of video, sound, and the installation. For me, this is a more holistic way to represent the idea. During COVID, people invited video artists to show their work online, but, for me, this does not really make sense. Experience is not replaceable. The installation responds to the space itself.

KH: As a writer, I’m bamboozled by how one abandons storytelling.

LYM: I didn't totally abandon storytelling, but I don’t like using texts or language so much, because I like to keep things open. I try not to define. I try to create more space to let things happen.

KH: If There is No One Singing on the River took several years, are there long-term projects you're working on right now that are happening simultaneously?

LYM: No. Even though From Whence the Waves Came took five years, I didn't have a plan for the whole project. It's always by chance that I go further. This is, somehow, how it has worked. Maybe some artists are better at planning and they already have the entire storyline when they start the project. I just do it spontaneously.

KH: Working as an artist in Hong Kong, do you feel the need to respond to the political situation? Does it impinge on the things that you're allowed to make? Does it make you angry? Does it feel hopeless?

LYM: This is a good question, but very difficult to answer. I think even though we want to respond, we try not to, because we don't think art is something urgent during the protest. But we do accumulate a lot of feelings, anger, and depression. Several years ago, some of my friends started to talk about trauma. We don't directly use art to tell our standpoints. We take it up as a way to express or to consolidate feelings. I think this is the way we respond.

KH: I like the word accumulation. Perhaps art can’t be a political force, but it can be a way to digest. I guess making work and addressing trauma are very emotionally taxing things to do. Is there a dialogue with older generations of artists who have dealt with censorship and intensive political movements before?

LYM: Recently, I was invited by Para Site art space in Hong Kong to become one of the facilitators for a program to support young artists called “2046 Fermentation.” Because I'm one of the facilitators, I have a chance to talk with them and ask how their work relates to their emotions or experience of the social movement.

KH: Is making work a way to heal?

LYM: I think it is only for healing the artists themselves. I don't know whether it can also heal others. Maybe seeing a young artist's video work that had some footage of the movement—like running on the street to escape tear gas—gave me a strong feeling, but I don't know whether it was healing. For the artist in question, she mentioned it's a healing process for her when she revisits this kind of footage.

"We don't directly use art to tell our standpoints. We take it up as a way to express or to consolidate feelings. I think this is the way we respond."

Goodbye, See You Again, Victoria East, 2021

Installation View

Image credit : Taipei Digital Art Center

KH: If art can’t heal, what are some other limitations you think it has? Or you have?

LYM: I don't think of myself as powerful. But I don't feel limitations. I just do what I’m able to do. This is good enough.

KH: Has Hong Kong, and its limitations, made you the artist you are?

LYM: I’ve been rethinking a year I spent living in Beijing, right after my Master’s degree, because when I finished I just felt like maybe I should go somewhere. I barely created anything for that year because it was so cold and I didn't adapt to the environment. When I came back, I started to create work. So, yes—maybe Hong Kong made me an artist.

Kat Herriman

Kat Herriman is a freelance writer, curator and the creative director behind Cultured magazine.