Mailing project：Public Garden 人人花園
[ work-in-progress ]
2024
Risograph & digital printed postcards
144 postcards, size variable
 

Beginning with a rainbow emerging from the fountain in the Bing Tau Garden, Wish You Well (2020-) first takes place as a site-specific relational art, later expanding into the Public Garden (2024) mailing project. Considering mail as a medium to construct images that transcend beyond time and borders, the project uses relational power in response to post-colonial imaginings and itinerant belongings.

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The title "Public Garden" refers to the Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens on old postcards, commonly known as "Bing Tau Fa Yuen." The faults in names reflect historical mutations and echo the hazy memories shared among people regarding the fountain after three reconstructions. This serves as the driving force behind my creation of this relational site. By inviting people to make a wish upon its rainbow, I turn the site into a collective wishing fountain.

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On the eve of parting, how do you fit home into a suitcase? I divided the collective wishing fountain up into 144 image fragments on postcards, which were printed in Hong Kong and mainland China through two systems—risograph and indigo printing—to create a full view. To the blue sky above, I added white clouds taken from postcards of different eras. I uprooted them, relocated them, reproduced them, and in the process also transplanted our wishful thinking. The image of the fountain would only be re-visualized when the wishers mailed the postcards. For these fragmented pieces of history are the only evidence of our atlas of the future.

由噴水池中的一道彩虹開始，作品「祝君好」首先以在地藝術形式發生，後來延伸出「人人花園」這郵寄計劃，探討歷史地景的公共性和流動性，並以郵寄作為構建影像的媒界來回應後殖民的想像。

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Public Garden 為舊明信片上香港動植物公園的稱號，但它被慣稱為「兵頭花園」。名字的落差反映歷史的變遷，也呼應經過三次重建後意態模糊的噴水池。我實驗以關係塑造地景。當彩虹於噴水池中冒起，我邀請各人許願，以許願本身來構築一座許願池。 

臨別前夕，如何把家放進行李箱？我把這共同構築的許願池散落在144張明信片上。影像賴以眾寄件人寄出明信片跨越地域來「成像」。

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明信片一半於香港印製，一半於中國內地印製，以兩種印刷機制構建全景。在藍天中，我加上來自不同年代香港明信片的白雲。掏空、遷移、複製一朵白雲，移植對美好的一廂情願，如若寄出那未曾看見的風景—一座尚未成真的許願池。