wui⁴ gwai¹

blog: wui4gwai1.wordpress.com

wui⁴ gwai¹, the Cantonese pronunciation of 回歸(reunification), the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong.
The mesmerizing Hong Kong neon signs are arranged into a collage, projected onto walls, yet will be nibbled and transformed into Simplified Chinese while people are around, hinting the cultural invasion of Simplified Chinese and Mandarin around us.

Artist Statement

Simplified Chinese was originally designed and promoted to solve the illiteracy in China, and had now become the standardized Chinese characters in mainland China. On the other hand, Hong Kong has been using the more precise traditional characters. Although Traditional Chinese characters consist of more complex structures and bodies, such form often retains the meaning of the word itself, whereas the form of Simplified Chinese was reduced, losing the significance of the wordings.

Thus, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been intense, especially in the current political environment of Hong Kong citizens opposing the Chinese government. It is widely believed that the promotion of Simplified Chinese is an invasion towards local culture. Not listening to public opinion, the government attempted to secretly implement Simplified Chinese and Mandarin into the compulsory education of primary and secondary school curriculum, the occurrence of Simplified Chinese in public media is also increasing. Along with the increasing mainlanders in Hong Kong, the popularization of the simplified characters is treated as a cultural invasion from the Chinese Government.

「要消滅一個民族，首先瓦解它的文化；要瓦解它的文化，首先先消滅承載它的語言；要消滅這種語言，首先先從他們的學校裡下手。」——希特拉

There is a saying in Chinese which goes “to eliminate a nation, its culture should first be disintegrated through eliminating the language, starting from their schooling”. The source is unknown but is often mistaken to be a quote from Adolf Hitler.

“wui⁴ gwai¹” inscribes this issue by taking neon signs as the metaphor of local culture, of which characters deforming into Simplified Chinese implies the conquer of cultures and dictations from the mainland, while the name “wui⁴ gwai¹” is the Cantonese pronunciation of 回歸(reunification), hinting the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong, the Handover, the Return to China. Traditional Chinese and Cantonese would eventually be strangled along with local culture if the situation continues, and Hong Kong would become another ordinary city of China instead of a SAR.

Exhibited in SCM Annual 2018