李俊峰
這個駐場計劃的發生本沒有預定，大概是一大堆偶然因素驅使進行。2011年初，我剛從東京完成駐場計劃回港，預備到我與友人主持的電台節目分享當地觀察，在節目開始前我與友人到餐廳晚飯，席間遇上一些社運朋友，他們談起剛剛因參與了要求財政預算案「還富於民」的堵路行動而被捕，友人說道：「以目前這種氣氛，若堵路行動持續下去，每星期、甚至每天都有人自發佔領城市的主要街道，不難想像整個運動將會持續昇溫...」說得雀躍之際，另一位友人在旁卻不發一言，似乎是對這趨勢不太樂觀，他說道：「運動若持續下去或許不難，但推倒這個政府後，大家想要一個什麼樣的政府？似乎是更重要的問題...」討論未完，我先回電台做節目，數星期後，一些朋友因堵路行動而被正式起訴，如友人之前所想，更多人站出來抵抗的場面最後亦沒有發生，包括我，也是缺席一份子…
回到約一個月前的東京，我獲邀參與藝術家駐場。那年奇怪地出現冷鋒，我與友人晚飯後步出餐廳，原來外面下雪了！就在各人起步回家之際，我看到路邊有一名露宿者，他坐在路旁，以我亦前所未見的頻率在抖震，強烈的身體語言告訴我：「他感到非常寒冷。」那時在我前面剛好有一位日本人經過，但他卻只是直行直過，沒有理會這位露宿者。我見此狀況，便立刻走進便利店買了一些食物和熱飲給他。我對這位日本人的冷漠滿帶疑問，身旁友人語帶譏諷地說：「這有什麼奇怪？日本是一個『進步』社會嘛！」之後我都再沒遇上這位露宿者... 後來，駐場計劃完成，我有數天的自由時間，於是便去探望由韓國藝術家金江介紹的朋友﹣市村美佐子。在東京市中心的這個藍帳篷村子裡，美佐子與我分享她與露宿者朋友共同生活了八年的故事，她為此驕傲，表示希望繼續以此方式生存下去。藝術與露宿者能建立什麼關係？這好像有點提示。
回港後，我開始計劃在「活化廳」攪一個「藝術家駐場計劃」，剛好香港政府在輿論壓力下，終於決定向每位市民派發港幣六千元。當時「活化廳」樓上的倉庫單位已空置良久，在友人的協力下，我們將樓上單位改造作藝術家工作室，並以此六千元作為計劃的起動基金。這個駐場計劃大概就是這樣開展。
本書是「活化廳」第一本正式出版的活動記錄，收錄了2011-12年間的駐場計劃，包括5位（組）分別來自來台北、首爾、東京、瑞士以及法國的藝術家（組織）及由一眾東亞攪事份子合力炮製的「東亞諸眾峰會﹣﹣革命後的世界」＋「流動酒吧大作戰」。
這個駐場計劃一方面期望將來自不同城市的藝術家實踐個案介紹予各位，同一時間，我亦希望將「活化廳」的社區網絡接連到藝術家的創作實驗，看看能碰撞出什麼可能性，但更重要是我希望這個駐場計劃能夠成為一個關注「藝術與行動主義」的討論平台，從互相認識、支援到未來發展出進一步的跨地域連線。
這一個跨地域連線的構想，最先應來自我在2009年參與由韓國策展人金俊起策劃的「城市互聯」，相對過往慣常以文化差異的角度出發，這展覽提出一個「城市對城市」的觀點，亦即將交流的重點置放在城市的內部問題上，從觀察藝術家如何在創作上回應身處的城市，也便折射一個在全球化的脈絡下各城市的處境。而在那次計劃後，我認識到韓國一些有趣的藝術家和社運朋友，同時亦認識到當地一些自主空間實驗和土地抗爭運動。回港後不久，「活化廳」亦正式在油麻地開展，數月後又發生了「反高鐵」運動，再加上我在媒體上認識的「素人之亂」、「野草莓學運」等...於是我感覺到亞洲各地的社會運動都有著貼近的脈搏，而這共時性背後其實正反映，即使各城市的政治結構都不盡相同，但我們亦面對一些共同的問題，這些問題或許正是如柄谷行人所說，一個「國家﹣資本﹣國族」三環互扣的結構下，又或說，一個現代社會與資本主義體制下對個體所做成的壓抑與不公義。因此，藝術家作為一個自主的和具創造性的「美學生產者」，他／她們的實踐便提供了一個對應體制壓抑的「微參照」。同一時間，資本的問題亦已不再是單一地域的問題，而是各國政府與全球資本的共同勾結，因此，藉著建立這個跨地域的連線，我們便能從各地的經驗彼此啟發，及至想像一種相互支援和行動的可能，以作為一種超越「國家﹣資本」的抗衡力量。
此書介紹的藝術家和行動者，他／她們各自從自身的領域走到運動的最前線，又或從其社區默默經營，這些實踐亦說明了藝術家參與運動時的角色定位，藝術，又或一種美學經驗的創造能力，如何在社會／運動中創造凝聚「異議」的空間。比如湯皇珍創立的「藝術家工會」正提問當下藝術家的社會角色與文化藝術產業化下所產生的矛盾，「藝術家工會」亦像是波依斯所說的「社會有機體」，在體制內創造持續的阻抗。她在駐場期間亦進行了「尋找城市裂縫：台北﹣香港」，藉收集街坊的口述故事組織成行動展演，述說城市發展與社區記憶之間的裂縫。金氏父婦在韓國進行不同類型的「佔屋」行動，將藝術結合到直接的抗爭行動，這種結合不單感染到更多民眾參與，亦直接觸發社會的轉變。對照之下，市村美佐子的「抗爭」更內化到日常生活，藝術家與無家者兩個角色同時並存，藝術像是一種可轉化的能力，出現在日常生活，也在抗爭的前線，另一方面，美佐子的無家者的生存方式亦正正提示我們一種脫離資本主導的可能。
以上三位藝術家大概展示了藝術結合到社會行動的三種可能的狀態：湯老師的「尋找城市裂縫」是對話性的，參與者在述說故事之時，亦創造了凝聚記憶情感的社會空間，讓參與者在平台上思考自身跟城市之間的距離。
金氏父婦的藝術／行動是沖撞性的，以藝術家的身體沖撞到現實體制，如一根尖矛突出事情的荒謬，開放了我們被抑壓的想像力。美佐子是內化的，藝術、生活和抗爭之間已無邊界，她的生活就是一場最激進的展演。
美佐子的行動不是一次性，而是持續每天的無家者角色，以及她在日常生活每一細節所示範的異質性。若將這種內化申延到社區生活，我們必然將聯繫到如「活化廳」一類的自發社群／空間，亦即一種創造異質性生活的空間實踐。
本書收錄了「東亞諸眾峰會﹣革命後的世界」的論壇紀錄，四組分別來自東亞四個不同城市的藝術／行動者組織，分享各自追尋的「革命後世界」。自主組織，及至具創意和感染力的方法，之於東亞不同城市的脈絡下，各自如何思考持續行動的可能。最後本書亦收錄了瑞士藝術家 Markuz Wernli 的「廟街天台樹」計劃和法國藝術家 Jean Michel-Rubio + Magali Louis 的「香港有隻大金剛」，各自深入到油麻地社區，以具滲透的參與手法，凝聚了社區人士的關注和討論。
這些很有意思的實踐很多時候因欠缺跨地域的整理、語言差異、媒體流通性等原因不容易讓大家知道，而這方面的討論與支援亦似乎是嚴重地被忽視。故此，我便更感到著力推動這個「邊緣對邊緣」的藝術／行動者連線的必要。雖然，在香港，本土正面對的問題非常多，但我期望藉著建立這跨地域的視野，藝術家和行動者能更進一步交流，從不同時空中創造更深遠持續的抗爭。最後補充一點說，「駐場交流」雖不算是「活化廳」的重點工作，（因為「活化廳」強調的是一種緊扣社區脈絡、並與街坊日常交往和合作的關係建立，駐場計劃無論是觀察社區的時間和計劃的持續性，比較起從生活裡面引發的創作，駐場的方式其實有點「空降」），但我還是珍視這些「交流」所碰撞出來的啟發，「交流」的意義其實永遠不是為了解決事情（藝術亦是），我們亦不一定能肯定它帶來實際的果效，但我相信這像是禮物的交換，在交換的過程，我們將碰撞出更豐富的想像，從而將力量一點一滴的累積起來吧。
Lee Chun-Fung
Slice 1
After I came back from the residence programme in 3331 Art Chiyoda in early 2011, I went to share my observations and experience there in the radio programme hosted by my friends and me. I had dinner with my friends before the programme at a restaurant nearby where I met some activists, and we talked about the street occupation action of some activists in response to the government budget. My friend thought that if the occupation could continue and people occupy streets in the city every week, or everyday, the whole movement shall become more and more heated. While my friend was talking with such excitement, the person next to him didn't utter a word and looked rather suspicious of the growing trend. To him, what's at stake is what kind of government do we actually want to have after the current government is overthrown. I had to leave for the radio station before the discussion ended. A few weeks later, some of my friends were indicted because of an occupation action. However, what my friend expected to see, having more and more people to stand out against the situation, didn't realize. Most of the people, including myself, are absent.
After I came back from the residence programme in 3331 Art Chiyoda in early 2011, I went to share my observations and experience there in the radio programme hosted by my friends and me. I had dinner with my friends before the programme at a restaurant nearby where I met some activists, and we talked about the street occupation action of some activists in response to the government budget. My friend thought that if the occupation could continue and people occupy streets in the city every week, or everyday, the whole movement shall become more and more heated. While my friend was talking with such excitement, the person next to him didn't utter a word and looked rather suspicious of the growing trend. To him, what's at stake is what kind of government do we actually want to have after the current government is overthrown. I had to leave for the radio station before the discussion ended. A few weeks later, some of my friends were indicted because of an occupation action. However, what my friend expected to see, having more and more people to stand out against the situation, didn't realize. Most of the people, including myself, are absent.
Slice 2
Chiyoda was unusually cold that year. One night, I walked out from a restaurant with my friends after dinner and it was snowing outside. That was my first time seeing snow. I was so excited, and so did my friends. However, when we walked pass a convenience store, I saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, trembling so intensely that I had never seen before. His strong body language told me that he was freezing.I was puzzled by the indifference of that Japanese guy. But my friend said in a satirical tone, 'Japan is such a "progressive" society'. When we got back to our studio, my friend got a thick and huge carton box ,which was intended to be material for his artwork, and sent that to the homeless guy for the coldest winter night. I went to meet Misako Ichimura, a friend of Korean artist Kim Kang, in the few free days I had after the residence programme finished. Misako has been living in the blue tent village in a park in Tokyo for eight years together with many homeless friends and she still hope to continue such living style. If you ask me what art can do for the homeless?Her story gives certain hints.
Chiyoda was unusually cold that year. One night, I walked out from a restaurant with my friends after dinner and it was snowing outside. That was my first time seeing snow. I was so excited, and so did my friends. However, when we walked pass a convenience store, I saw a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, trembling so intensely that I had never seen before. His strong body language told me that he was freezing.I was puzzled by the indifference of that Japanese guy. But my friend said in a satirical tone, 'Japan is such a "progressive" society'. When we got back to our studio, my friend got a thick and huge carton box ,which was intended to be material for his artwork, and sent that to the homeless guy for the coldest winter night. I went to meet Misako Ichimura, a friend of Korean artist Kim Kang, in the few free days I had after the residence programme finished. Misako has been living in the blue tent village in a park in Tokyo for eight years together with many homeless friends and she still hope to continue such living style. If you ask me what art can do for the homeless?Her story gives certain hints.
Slice 3
After I returned to Hong Kong, I had this idea of launching a residence programme in Wooferten. Coincidentally the Finance Secretary of Hong Kong decided to give $6,000 to each citizen as a result of overwhelming pressure from the mass. The storeroom on the second floor of Woofer-ten had been left vacant for quite sometime. So we renovated the storeroom to be a studio for the residence programme with help from friends. I hope to bring together the many artists I met over the years to Hong Kong. I also hope to create a platform in which artists will be supported, just like what I have experienced in other residence programmes. By introducing artists to the neighborhood in Yau Ma Tei, I do hope to see some interesting connections and relationships.
After I returned to Hong Kong, I had this idea of launching a residence programme in Wooferten. Coincidentally the Finance Secretary of Hong Kong decided to give $6,000 to each citizen as a result of overwhelming pressure from the mass. The storeroom on the second floor of Woofer-ten had been left vacant for quite sometime. So we renovated the storeroom to be a studio for the residence programme with help from friends. I hope to bring together the many artists I met over the years to Hong Kong. I also hope to create a platform in which artists will be supported, just like what I have experienced in other residence programmes. By introducing artists to the neighborhood in Yau Ma Tei, I do hope to see some interesting connections and relationships.
That's how the residence project started.
This book is the first formal attempt to chronicle our activities as Wooferten. It details the work of 5 artists/art groups who hail variously from Taipei, Seoul , Tokyo, Switzerland and France, all of whom came to Hong Kong between the years 2011 and 2012. It also records the proceedings of a conference that we organized- East Asia Multitude Meeting: World After Revolution- and an event coordinated by Amateurs Revolt and ourselves, the ‘Mobile Bar Battle’. This scheme was conceived to supply a platform through which artists and activists from overseas could share, through specific examples, their experiences with denizens of the city, while furthering the experimental encounter between art and the neighborhood that Wooferten has always placed at the foreground of our operations. Most importantly, I hoped that the scheme would be a means by which we could carry out a sustained conversation on the relationship between art and activism, one that could produce unforeseen possibilities.
In 2009, I was invited to the Busan Art Museum, as a participant in Inter-City, an exhibition curated by Gim Jungi. The exhibition suggestively raised the possibility of communicating on a ‘local to local’ level. Rather than emphasizing differences in culture, the exhibition placed its focus upon problems of the city, investigating the ways in which artists respond to their local milieus, throwing a light upon the complex circumstances generated by global capital. Through this experience, I came to know many fascinating artists and activists, who brought me on a tour through the sites of struggle throughout the city, through autonomous spaces and areas where conflicts over land were taking place. Shortly after I returned to Hong Kong, Wooferten formally opened its doors in Yau Ma Tei, an opening that would be followed a few months later by the movement against the Express Railway to China. This concatenation of events made me reflect upon the highly visible parallels and interconnections between cities across Asia. However different the contexts and conditions that divide us are, it seemed to me that we were all entangled in the Nation-Nation State-Capital mesh that Kojin Karatani put forward to describe the structure of modern political history. Art, as a critical and dialogical practice, offered the possibility of constructing subterranean points of escape from this triadic structure, while creating links through which trans-national, trans-territorial networks of resistance could be formed.
At around the same time, a new tendency began to sweep through the art and activist scenes across Asia. Social movements began to employ creative cultural means that spread like a viral contagion across borders. This prompted an urgent reflection- what role, what function does art perform in social struggles? In recent years, I have met many who are preoccupied with the same question, and who have stood on the frontline of struggles or built infrastructures of resistance in neighborhoods. These encounters have demonstrated, in exemplary ways, the forms that art can assume in relation to social movements, but I was always left with the feeling that there was no exchange between these various experiments, no way of putting something in circulation between them, so that experiences could be shared and examined collectively. Inspired by these encounters, I decided to transform Wooferten into a place where these experiments, situated at the furthestmost margins of their respective cities, could be placed in proximity with one another.
In conclusion, I would like to make it clear that although this is the first coordinated attempt to record Wooferten’s activities in print, the AAiR scheme is not a central part of Wooferten’s work. Wooferten is firmly lodged in a rich and dense web of social relationships, which is woven and re-woven on a daily basis through everyday exchanges with neighbors. The scheme, which hosts artists for a brief period, necessarily works on a different scale of time than this long-term work. The exchanges that the scheme has facilitated are not, in themselves, a solution to the problems that we collectively face. All we can do is hope that the little sparks of surprise and serendipity that may result from the collision of differences can illuminate the contours of our current situation, while showing us a path beyond it.
More about this publication: http://wooferten.blogspot.hk/2015/01/book-launch-woofertens-aair-2011-129-i.html
