Eng
/

Unlock Body Lab: Overseas Artist-In-Residence Programme

Albert GARCIA – “Survival Guide in Mobility”

Unlock Dancing Plaza has invited multi-disciplinary artist Albert GARCIA to take part in a three-week “Overseas Artist-in-Residence Programme” at the year end of 2022. Born and raised in Macao with Filipino descent, Garcia has developed his artistic practice focusing on the body politics of society’s relationship to the minorities, and the complexity of an individual’s identity. This residency takes “Survival Guide in Mobility” as the main focus, he will extend his research on “Survival Guide” through field study, interviews, filmmaking and workshops to connect different communities and learn from their experiences. At the end of the residency, Albert would share his findings and expand his composition on “Survival Guide” in a Work-in-progress Presentation. 

Unlock Dancing Plaza focuses on developing a diverse performing arts ecology, from questioning institutionalized dance aesthetic to reimagining the relationship of performing arts with the society and every day life. The “Overseas Artist-in-Residence Programme” invites artists of different cultural backgrounds to Hong Kong to share their ideas, creative strategies and interests, in order to create discourses, renew perspectives and provoke imaginations. During the residency, a variety of events, such as workshops, sharing, talks and work-in-progress presentation will be held to engage with the public, from the interaction with local communities, we hope to depict the potentialities of performing arts with revelance in the local scene.

Period: 28/11/2022

Event registration are now available on Art-mate.

Buy Now
Events

1.12 (Thu) 15:00 – 18:00 
Free of Charge 
San Po Kong (Detail address will be provided later)  

The complex and mobile multi-identity of Albert GARCIA got him travelled in various places in the last few years, including Macao, Taiwan, Singapore, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Australia, etc.; in the context of pandemic and limited mobility, how did Garcia “survive”? 
  
GARCIA will share his experiences as an independent artist and performer; this workshop is suitable for independent art practitioners and producers. 

The workshop welcomes all independent artists and producers.

1.12 (Thu) 20:00 – 21:30 
Free of Charge 
San Po Kong (Detail address will be provided later)  
  
Towards the end of 2022, Unlock Dancing Plaza “Overseas Artist-In-Residence Programme” invites Albert GARCIA to continue his constant exploration on identity, migration, labour, survival guide, etc. 
 
In this sharing, Garcia will briefly introduce himself, his previous works, and artistic practices. Through this opportunity, we hope to gather practitioners despite the very peak year-end season, to share and exchange valuable experiences. 
 
The Get-together welcomes all local arts and cultural practitioners.

17.12 (Sat) 16:00-17:30 
Free of charge 
Eaton HK (Detail address will be provided later)
Speaker: Albert GARCIA, Romina Eloisa ABUAN (Asia Studies Scholar)  
Respondent: Christine VICERA (Literary & Cultural Studies Scholar) 

Artist-in-Residence Albert GARCIA’s artistic practices are not limited to interviews, performance-making or filmmaking, involving also cultural research and analysis of the subjects that he investigates. 

This talk will take “performing citizenship” as the starting point and use it as a framework to understand and connect other individual’s experiences regarding their identities, which sheds light on the social norms and how the invisible social mechanisms suppress or influence individuals, and the possibilities to transform these experiences into creation. 

The talk welcomes general public. 

The talk will be hosted in English.

17.12 (Sat) 20:00-21:30 
Eaton HK (Detail address will be provided later) 
$150 
Post-talk | Moderator: Emilie Choi (Moving Image Researcher and Curator); Speaker: Albert GARCIA

During his three week of residency, Albert GARCIA is going to develop the first stage of his lecture performance Untitled 2.0 and present it as work-in-progress mixing live performance, lecture and a video work based on an action script to create fictional situations in the midst of true stories. This work attempts to create a hybrid form of performance from the idea of performing citizenship. 
 
“ Untitled 2.0 “ is a survival guide which aims to question society’s relationship to the collective, and the status of the individual. It also seeks to critically probe the standards at the base of the anthropization process and the design of our built environment and habitats. By rethinking how we envision the human habitat and with it, the forms of social relationships that spatial organization generates. A project to educate myself and others who faces everyday threat, and prepare whatever holds the future. Share the durable body under all circumstances of the current status quo. 
 
Our entire precarious life is submitted to this one imperative: competition. All of our collective energies are enlisted to one goal: to maintain against all others in order to survive. By experimenting with the performance rules of survival, through interviews, action drafts, special body techniques, the code, constructing a scene beyond reality. 
 
After the presentation, Emilie Choi, who is a moving image researcher and curator, will moderate the post-talk talk with Albert GARCIA to unfold the process of making the work as well as the context behind and its cultural implications.

Welcomes general public.

(Only available in Chinese)

在2022年底,我們邀請海外藝術家Albert GARCIA 來港作三星期的駐留,延伸他對於當代社會中的生存策略以及相關議題的長期關注。 Garcia 將以「生存指南」為題,提問當代社會中身份構成的複雜性及其展演性(performativity),以自身的經驗去分享他各種身份在不同的語境中面對的困難、期望和應對策略。 

駐留計畫亦命名為「移動中的生存指南」,從不同意義層面指涉各種「生存處境」與我們現實既近像遠的距離。從#資源——以表演者及編舞的身份,談及表演藝術生產模式中的市場運作機制,觸及藝術家以移動作資本的生存方式,到#身分——從公民身分展演性切入,探討不同身分或處境中,對於社會無形的期望和想像中如何自處和抵抗,再至#創作(在多樣生存處境的迴廊中,如何以當代表演跨及不同媒介累積及轉化經驗和生產知識)。

駐留期間,Garcia將以田野考察、訪談、錄像創作及工作坊等方式,連接不同社群,收集、聆聽在地故事,從理解他人的生存處境中尋找更多共同經驗,擴充其「生存指南」的構成,並作階段性呈現和分享。  

Garcia 對於議題、當代表演生產及形式的探索,來自於個人對於身處環境的敏銳觀察,具批判性地理解和解構表演的生產過程,並以此作手段去展示身體與社會經驗之間互動的關係。他的實踐反映出當代表演對媒介運用的流動性,以過程主導(process-oriented)的創作方式去重置表演的價值,展現以自身作為媒介的創作方式。 

在時常叩問身份、離留、以及創作何用的當下,Garcia的研習呼應著大環境中共同面對的困境(dilemma)。帶有距離的觀察和做法也許帶來新的觀點,在不同的生存處境下反照與本地異同的掙扎和堅持。 

不加鎖舞踊館藝術總監 
李偉能

Artists & Guests

Albert GARCIA’s physical practices started with physical theatre, and recently taking up hapkido. In between he has practiced different philosophies of the body, including Chinese dance, Tai Chi, martial arts, and acrobatics. Throughout these bodily experiences and meeting different choreographers' demands, Albert manages to ‘survive’ different circumstances of physical triggers. Throughout the residency, Albert will share on how he uses the body as an instrument to overcome different physical demands and its relations to the surroundings. 
 
Albert GARCIA (b. 1994) is a multi-disciplinary artist and was born and raised in Macao with Filipino descent. A migrant and performance maker, who uses the body and media as a vessel for questioning and showing their identity reflections when viewing the land of Macao. His works interrogate topics about identity, belonging, movements, migration, body of labor and survival. Garcia is a graduate of University of Macao where they majored in Media studies and Masters in Fine Arts in Dance Performance at Taipei National University of the Arts.

Romina Eloisa M. Abuan is a Junior Project Officer at the UP Centre International de Formation des Autorités et Leaders (CIFAL), or International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders, in the Philippines. She is Filipina and was born and raised in Macao SAR. She completed her Bachelors in Government and Public Administration, specializing in International and Public Affairs at the University of Macao, and has a Minor in Portuguese Studies. She is currently pursuing her Masters of Arts in Asian Studies concentrating on Southeast Asia at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. Her lived and observed experiences as a second-generation (returnee) and migrant has allowed her to view migration from an insider’s and outsider's perspective. Her research interests include Southeast Asia, Migration, Diaspora, and Southeast Asian International Relations.

Christine Vicera (she/hers/siya) is a Filipino writer, researcher, and filmmaker from Hong Kong. At the heart of her interdisciplinary research and praxis lies a broader interest in the relationship between memory, migration, and “post”-/anti-/decoloniality in the context of Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, specifically the Philippines. Storytelling and community building are integral to her praxis. She is co-director of the documentary short, Sisig and Puchero (2021), which was screened at the 2021 Southeast Asia x Seattle Film Festival. Her writing has been published in Kritika Kultura, Voice & Verse, Spill Stories and Verge: Studies in Global Asias.

Choi Sin-yi (Emilie) is a Hong Kong based researcher, writer and curator. She is pursuing a PhD degree in School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong currently. Her research focus lies in the conjunction of media archaeology, independent cinema and documentary, visual culture in East Asian. Apart from the academic realm, she has participated in a wide range of roles, including as board member of Videotage, member of Floating Projects Collective, cultural journalist and critic, curator of independent film festivals (documentary retrospective programme) and exhibitions. 
Personal website: www.emiliesy.com 

Acknowledgment

Presenter: Unlock Dancing Plaza 
Residency Partner: Eaton HK 
Venue Support: Tin Project 
Supported by: Hong Kong Arts Development Council

Curator: Joseph Lee 
Resident Artist: Albert GARCIA 
Collaborating Partners: Romina Eloisa ABUAN, Christine VICERA, Emilie Choi, Chui Chi Yin, Chan Hau Chun 
Producer: Charlotte Wong