Crucified TVs: Not A Prayer In Heaven (and Simulated Suicide Project)

May 13, 2023

There are always reasons why people love visiting the M+ museum which was only opened to the public last November 2021. During its first year, we were able to visit it for free at booking hours. Aside from it being located in a cultural district facing the harbor with a scenic view, this place is enormous that you could spend your whole day wandering around its thirty-three galleries. There are always interesting displays and exhibitions that are worth seeing.

You probably have read one of those exhibitions shared the other day, and here is another interesting exhibition held at the Focus Gallery.

Crucified TVs: Not A Prayer In Heaven

This was the very first gallery that caught my attention as I thought it was a chapel because of the huge white glowing crucifix suspended in the air with two long wooden chairs in front of it similar to those found in chapels. Meanwhile, the room was rather almost empty in the same tone from ceiling, walls, and floor like a blank grey paper. Shortly, I realized that it's inappropriate to put a chapel in a museum, unless it's a sacred one.

I was looking at a five-channel digital video installation formed like a crucifix. This digital installation is a project of Young-hae Chang Heavy Industries from South Korea known for their artistic experimentations and digital animations.

Upon entering the gallery, the crucifix showed different flashed texts and phrases - some were random, and some were poetic - with deep meaning if you'll look at them from different perspectives. Albeit random, the combined texts and flashed animations seemed to tell stories pertaining to politics, unrest war, arts, affirmation of life, and others.

The place may look creepy at first look, but the background music isn't, rather soothing self-composed jazz music. As I stayed longer in this space, I felt like I did a meditation while looking at those flashing animations with different thoughts provoking texts, and listening to its jazz music background.

Simulated Suicide Project Relating To 'One'

What would you feel if you see seemingly dead body photographs along with some suspended ropes which seemed to have been used in suicide? This exhibition sent shivers down my spine as I thought those in photos were real dead bodies of people who committed suicide. I even thought, Are they crazy to put these in a museum? Upon checking its information posted on the wall, it's a Simulated Suicide Project by Wei Guangqing relating to Taoist concept 'One.'

The three panels show photos regarding different enactments of suicide. There are photos of a human body figure wrapped in white cloth lying on a white blanket with a black cross shape. Some were taken on a train railway, some on the road, and some were in a bathtub.

There was a video installed near the panels with photographs about the suicide enactments that were performed in China in 1989. The main purpose of this exhibition was to address the philosophical questions of suicide.

This exhibition can truly help raise awareness about the matter and to show how significant one life is not to be wasted in such an immoral act. In over five years of living in Hong Kong, I've seen a large case of suicide in which many young people were involved. So this exhibition was probably added to the museum where many people are going to address this rising issue in this generation, and how to prevent possible suicide and death from happening.

Care for your life, just live happily. There are many ways to cope with depression and solve life problems. Suicide is definitely not the solution to any of those issues bothering your mind.

This is my entry for the #monomad challenge. If you wanna join, you can check this post about it and make sure to follow the criteria before submitting your entry.

You can also check this art exhibition held in this museum.

Vision In Motion Visual Art Exhibition Of Nalini Malani

(All photos are mine)

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