Sealed Aura (2024)
[This work has been shortlisted and will be published by Broken Englizh's open call "Stories on Breath (2024)". This page is restricted for the assessment of Horniman Musicians in Residence 2024, and will be deactivate after the process is done.]
Sealed Aura (20224)
Projective Installation
Glass bottle, Cotton string, Paper Stereo sound, Video
Dimensions: 1920x1080 (projection); ⌀ 7 x 30 cm (glass)
To taste some of the purest oxygen in the world, it is said that some wealthy Hong Kong residents once purchased jars of fresh air shipped all the way from Europe. Since the post-2019 Hong Kong Exodus, Euro-America has become their new settling locale. The long-awaited dream of breathing fresh air may have seemingly come true. Yet, Sealed Aura narrates another dream—a serendipitous encounter of a jar of air packaged in their dearest homeland.
We, the conceivers of the Sealed Aura, are two Hong Kong-raised emigrants who embarked on a new adventure overseas, leaving behind the established business and network in our home city. As a folk instrumentalist, one of us began classical music training to seek more performance opportunities in a strange city. The other, formerly an architectural designer, is currently pursuing licence certification in a foreign setting.
Beginning afresh in a distant place, the Hong Kongers are not refugees escaping wars or natural disasters, nor are they “crazy rich Asians” indulging in opulence abroad. Like most ordinary people, we prioritise our own livelihood and family members’ wellness as they commence an unprecedented life transition in an unexplored territory. Little attention, however, has been directed to the unique cultures, language, lifestyle, faith, political views and identity of this newly emerged ethnic group in Euro-America.
Tackling mislabels is a genuine concern for Hong Kongers overseas. A nice elderly individual we met in a supermarket attempted to converse with us in Japanese, probably learned from an intriguing class. An enthusiastic waitron at a fusion Oriental restaurant would recommend their signature fried rice before realising our preference leans more towards the instant noodle demae itcho. Even on a random street around the globe during a sunny afternoon, we are accustomed to friendly greetings like nihao—literally “hello” in Standard Chinese, the official language of the People’s Republic of China—and can seldom clarify, “Sorry we speak our mother tongue, Cantonese.”
The cliché goes, “breathe the free air again.” Yet, starting anew in a strange place, however, is not always a poetic journey. Every individual may have experienced sudden shortness of breath whilst navigating through the unfamiliar, and facing hardships alone in a foreign land. Contests emerge from within as well. A quote from the esteemed classical Chinese novel Fortress Besieged endures, “those who are outside want to get in, and those who are inside want to get out.” People trapped in an oppressed region might firmly believe that the emigrants must be having a better life in the Promised Land. But how can one not be sentimental whilst facing crises, from daily little things to milestones in life, in a new town across the Ocean?
Sealed Aura depicts a dream where what washes up on the shore is bottled air, permeating scattered, distorted memories of one's poetic homeland—blue miscanthus, a mosaic harbour. The dreamwalker can't help but fixate on the kaleidoscopic bottle, despite the desire to open it and inhale the familiar air inside, knowing that the aura will soon dissipate. The beauty of good things is always fragile.
Running through the enclosed short video is Good Story (2023), a contemporary flute solo miniature composed by our close friend David Chan, a Hong Kong-based avant-garde composer, and performed and remixed by us. During a music demonstration conducted in English, while introducing some Cantonese musical works, an elderly Chinese lady asked us to learn Standard Chinese. With nearly twenty years of experience in the field, we believe that one's artistry or understanding of a specific subject doesn't require validation through proficiency in a particular language. Moreover, having an East-Asian face doesn't determine one's race and nationality. Although a polite response ended the peculiar conversation, it planted a seed for this music, as a response to such misconceptions. Here, we reflect on how, what, which, where, and to whom a good story could be told. A typical woodwind music usually features breathing that shapes elegant pitches and aural splendour. Good Story, nonetheless, is not a melodic composition but expresses all abstract, unpleasant musical elements, such as percussive sounds for example. A good story, we contemplate, as One Thousand and One Nights, The Grapes of Wrath (1939), The Kite Runner (2003) and many, many others have told us, is not necessarily uplifting and intelligible.
Transcending its own story, Sealed Aura is dedicated to all the incredibly courageous individuals who, against all odds, continue to breathe life into their meaningful stories, navigating challenges in every corner of the world.