What does landscape mean in a city where mountains sit beside skyscrapers?
For Hong Kong-based independent curator Zoie Yung, it can be found not only in traditional ink paintings or distant scenery, but also in the city’s streets, hiking trails and everyday experiences.
Her latest exhibition, The Pleasure-Dome of Hills: A Curated Hallucination of a Modern Literati, explores how the traditional Chinese concept of shanshui, or landscape, can be understood through contemporary urban life. Opening at Ora-Ora on Aug 27, the exhibition marks Yung’s first collaboration with the gallery.
Rather than simply placing artworks on gallery walls, Yung has imagined a modern literati’s studio where historical objects and contemporary creations coexist. Ming Dynasty huanghuali furniture, Qing Dynasty zitan pieces and Republican-era rosewood furniture are presented alongside works by contemporary artists, bringing different periods into conversation.
The idea is rooted in Yung’s interest in reinterpreting Eastern ink art from a contemporary perspective, particularly how traditional ideas of landscape can take on new meanings in a densely populated city like Hong Kong.
That connection is reflected in the exhibition’s focus on Hong Kong’s relationship with nature. Drawing inspiration from walking routes around Hollywood Road and Victoria Peak, the exhibition looks at how people have long sought moments of nature within the city — a relationship that continues today through hiking, walking and exercise.
One of the clearest examples is Hong Kong artist Dave Chow Yui Wang’s Constancy. Instead of depicting a mountain with traditional brushwork, Chow uses impressions from the underside of a treadmill belt to create ink-like marks. The lines record the distances and inclines completed by countless runners, turning a modern workout into a contemporary interpretation of climbing a mountain.
The exhibition features 13 artists, including Chan Cho Kiu Bunchi, Emily Cheng, Huang Dan, Ashlee Ip, Vann Kwok and Zhang Zhihui, working across painting, installation, sculpture, ceramics and wearable art. Their works approach nature, memory and contemporary life from different perspectives.
Through the exhibition, Yung invites audiences to look beyond the conventional image of mountains and rivers when thinking about landscape. In Hong Kong, the idea can also exist in the spaces between the city and nature — from an urban street leading towards the Peak to the repetitive movement of a runner on a treadmill.
The Pleasure-Dome of Hills: A Curated Hallucination of a Modern Literati will run at Ora-Ora in Tai Kwun from Aug 27.
