WONG WINSOME DUMALAGAN

Domestic helpers cook, clean, and do the chores in homes across Hong Kong. By night, however, they only get short glimpses of the city, often through kitchen windows, while dreaming and longing for their hometowns. In her work for “55 Squared”, the artist Winsome Wong delicately weaves domestic helpers’ images of Hong Kong and of their hometowns to shed light on their perception of “home” and thus paying tribute to their resilience.

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Born to a Chinese father and a Filipina mother who used to work as a domestic worker, the artist Winsome Wong collaborated with four domestic helpers working near Tai Kwun. The artist combined their cell phone shots and video images into a dreamy photo collage, through snapshots from their employers’ homes—places where they do not feel they truly belong—as well as from their homes far away in the Philippines. By way of various low-res photos and videos from friends and family, fragments of life are shared: a daughter trying on a princess dress and fairy wand originally sent from Hong Kong, a sunflower garden where she used to visit with her daughter, a mother proudly showing their home newly built with the money earned in Hong Kong. The various images are framed through windows, screens, lenses, which serve as portals between the inside and the outside worlds, the quasi-home here and the beloved home faraway, thus foregrounding and reflecting on the shifting gaze and perspectives of migrant workers.

 

Their Temporary Night Views and On-Screen Homelands by Winsome Wong is the sixth commissioned work for Tai Kwun’s “55 Squared” and is curated by Jill Angel Chun and Louiza Ho.

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外傭支撐著許多香港人的日常起居，洗衣煮飯照料長幼無微不至，但晚上往往只能從廚房窗戶一瞥城市的夜景，心中念念不忘的卻是他們的故鄉。藝術家黃慧心為大館「55平方米」創作的作品，將外傭眼中的香港景象和家鄉的風景細膩交織，從中探索他們對「家園」的感知，向他們在異地打拼、不屈不撓的精神致敬。

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黃慧心的父親是香港人，母親是曾在港當外傭的菲律賓人。這次藝術家特意與四位在大館附近工作的外傭合作，將她們的手機相片和視頻通話的截圖組合成夢幻般的拼貼，這些快照或是在她們雇主家中（一個他們不覺得自己真正屬於的地方）拍攝，或是在遠方菲律賓的家鄉取景。作品藉著來自朋友和家人的各種低像素手機相片和視頻，分享了她們的生活片段：女兒試穿從香港寄來的公主裙，拿著香港寄來的仙女棒；曾經和女兒一同遊覽的向日葵花園；母親自豪地展示她用在香港賺來的錢蓋成的新居。各種圖像通過窗戶、熒幕和鏡頭的框架，成為分隔內外世界的門戶：近在眼前的似家非家，真正心愛的家園卻遠在天邊，由此烘托出移民勞工的視線挪移和觀點的轉變。

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《暫時的夜景和熒幕家鄉》為大館「55平方米」的第六個委約作品，由何苑瑜及秦文娟共同策劃。

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