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How to be Happy Together?

Curated by Zairong Xiang

Spatial design by Su Chang Design Research Office

Para Site is delighted to present ‘How to be Happy Together?’, curated by Zairong Xiang. Departing loosely from Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together (1997), the exhibition enacts a critique of dualism and the questions raised by the dual and its split—between intimate and antagonistic partners, between political entities, between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and even between ‘I’ and ‘me’, transcending the logic of ‘either/or’ central to racial capitalism and colonial modernity. 

The primary setting for Wong Kar Wai’s queer Hong Kong cinema classic is Buenos Aires—the literal opposite side of the world from Hong Kong. Featuring over twenty artists from Hong Kong, its neighbouring localities, and Latin America, the exhibition alludes to Hong Kong’s clichéd status as a para-site ‘between east and west’, and ‘between tradition and modernity’, in order to interrogate encounters both imagined and real between two seemingly distant ends of the world. It engages with a wide range of artistic practices that stay formally within the pas de deux yet promiscuously open up to an unexpected array of couplings and decouplings, spotlighting overlooked historical, social, and cultural connections between Greater China and the world to rethink possibilities of a queer happy-togetherness.  

The exhibition’s unique spatial design takes its cue from the Tai hexagram of I Ching, which is often used to represent the nine orifices of the human body. Central to the exhibition is the imagery of the orifice, and more broadly, the hole as a portal, which can function as a site for both concealment and revelation. For the first time since Para Site moved to its current location, all nine windows in the exhibition space will be unobstructed, allowing new pathways towards a queer cosmos of happy-togetherness to emerge. The exhibition invites the audience to ponder: How can we live at once with our differences, shared struggles, or even complicity with those we most resist? Can we still live together, happily?

Para Site藝術空間榮幸呈獻，由向在榮策劃的聯展「快樂的方式不只一種」。展覽（英譯「How to be Happy Together?」）自王家衛1997年電影《春光乍洩》（英譯《Happy Together》）汲取靈感並展開臆想，對二元性及隨之訂立的分野作出批判——包括密友與敵手、政治實體、「我們」與「他們」，甚或「吾」與「我」之間的分野——由此僭越種族資本主義與現代殖民主義中的「二選一」邏輯。

在王家衛執導的酷兒港產片經典中，故事主要發生在布宜諾斯艾利斯——香港的對蹠地，亦即位於地球直徑兩端的異地。展覽匯聚來自香港、其周邊地區，以及拉丁美洲的逾二十位藝術家，指涉香港作為「東與西」及「傳統與現代」之間一個邊緣場域的既定形象，從而查探兩個看似遙遙相隔的地域之間想像或真實的邂逅。展覽內，不同藝術實踐一方面默認固有的二元，另一方面卻製造出意料之外的配對或錯配，聚焦大中華地區與世界其他地方之間備受忽視的歷史、社會與文化糾葛，藉此想像「快樂在一起」的別樣可能。

展覽獨特的空間設計引自《易經》中常用以象徵人體九竅的泰卦。「竅」的意象為展覽軸心之一，以孔洞隱喻門戶——同時具備匿藏與洩露的機能。展覽團隊於布展期間，首度將Para Site現址的九扇窗全數暴露於展場，呈現嶄新的路徑指向以「快樂在一起」為本的酷兒宇宙。展覽邀請觀眾思考：我們如何與迥異的彼此共同生活與鬥爭——如何處理與我們最反對的人事之間的沆瀣一氣？我們是否（還）可以快樂地生活在一起？ (Para Site)

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