Tai Kwun is proud to present its first-ever Art Week (22 to 30 March 2025) - a dynamic nine-day celebration brimming with cutting-edge performances from emerging artists, absorbing cultural events, extended exhibition hours, and eclectic commercial gallery offerings. 

As the highlight of the week, Artists’ Night, presented by Tai Kwun and supported by Art Basel Hong Kong, returns on Friday, 28 March 2025, curated by Jill Angel Chun and Shuman Wang. From 7-11 pm, venues across Prison Yard will be transformed with a cross-disciplinary lineup of performances, music, and entrancing experiences. Highlights include:

• Live performance and film screening by Lawrence Lek, named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people working in AI in 2024. Blending Sino-futurism, wasteland aesthetics, and expressive electronic soundscapes, Lek examines the body, identity, agency, and emotions in the age of artificial intelligence in “NOX”.
   

• Experimental electronic artist 33EMYBW will present a brand-new audiovisual performance, Holes of Sinian. The live set incorporates vocal samples and field recordings, blending music from China’s borderlands, Tanzania, Bulgaria, and Thailand.

Throughout Art Week, Tai Kwun Contemporary will offer extended hours for its ongoing exhibitions, providing greater access for arts professionals, VIP guests, and the public, including a line up of three female artists: Alicja Kwade: Pretopia; Hu Xiaoyuan: Veering; and Maeve Brennan: Records.  

Van Cleef & Arpels celebrates the spirit of spring with a transformation of Tai Kwun’s Parade Ground into a joyful playground. Created in collaboration with French artist Alexandre Benjamin Navet, a creative partner of Van Cleef & Arpels since 2020, the season of rebirth is given a fresh narrative in an unexpected world of adventure that blooms in Central Hong Kong from the first day of Spring. 

Coinciding with Hong Kong’s Art Month, the Maison’s immersive installation brings to the city abundant colour.

The beauty of nature and the grace of flora have played a significant role in the history of Van Cleef & Arpels since its founding in 1906. With extensive archival imagery to explore, Navet has embedded himself in the Maison’s heritage in his search for inspiration, a journey energised by a mutual passion for bringing dream worlds into being. In this artistic partnership, Tai Kwun in Central Hong Kong has been given over as an expansive canvas to Navet, upon which the spontaneity and vibrancy of nature spills over into dreamt up floral forms that carry visitors through an exuberant playground.

Parade Ground, Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road, Central,

InnerGlow is Tai Kwun’s signature programme launched in 2022 which brings the world’s leading creative and technical exponents of 3D architectural projection mapping technology to Hong Kong to illuminate, animate and transform the facades of Tai Kwun’s historic buildings and produce a large-scale public entertainment to attract families and audiences of all ages during a three-week season around Chinese New Year.

Each year, Tai Kwun’s highly successful partnership with The Electric Canvas (TEC) opens up opportunities for Hong Kong creative artists participate in the development of InnerGlow’s artistic and technical content, enhancing Hong Kong’s capability in this specialized field and expanding their practice to take up more creative leadership each year. For InnerGlow 2025 Tai Kwun and TEC have invited internationally acclaimed local new media artist Hung Keung to collaborate, with his distinctive sensibility and his profound interest in and knowledge of Chinese culture and literature, and to devise a vibrant visual journey at Garden of Reflection which unfolds across time and space in the Parade Ground.

Parade Ground 6:30pm-9pm (Every half hour)
Prison Yard 6:45pm-9:30pm

The exhibition traces the landscape transformations and the dynamic interactions between people and the environment that have shaped the character of Happy Valley, portraying the layered life of this evolving valley as one of Hong Kong’s iconic cultural landscapes.

Multimedia presentations—including an interactive topographic model, documentary films of the 1930s, the 1970s, and the present day, as well as rarely seen historic photos and maps—reveal the interwoven experience and everyday relationships that people have with Happy Valley. Through Happy Valley, this exhibition advocates for a holistic vision for urban heritage conservation to build an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future. 

The exhibition is part of the 140th anniversary activities for The Hong Kong Jockey Club.

Venue address: Duplex Studio, Block 01, Tai Kwun

Tai Kwun is proud to present “DigiRadiance: GOLD_LEAD_WOOD_COAL”, an immersive digital exhibition on view from 2 to 30 November 2024 in F Hall Studio. Featuring a newly commissioned multi-channel video installation produced by the acclaimed Aotearoa/New Zealand artist Lisa Reihana, this exhibition, curated by Tobias Berger, brings together the far-flung islands of Aotearoa/New Zealand and Hong Kong. Based on the moving yet tragic story of the sinking of SS Ventnor, the video immerses audiences in an extraordinary funeral procession from New Zealand to Hong Kong. The artist’s work draws on what is shared by these islands, including a strong maritime legacy and a history shaped by colonial forces—in a way following her distinctive blend of history and fiction in her large-scale video installation, in Pursuit of Venus [infected] (2015-17), when she represented New Zealand in the 2017 Venice Biennale.

In “DigiRadiance: GOLD_LEAD_WOOD_COAL”, Lisa Reihana explores issues surrounding foreign labour, longing, and displacement. The work takes us back to the late 1800s, shining light on the untold stories of Chinese gold miners who relocated to the Otago region on the South Island of New Zealand. Under tremendous hardship and severe living conditions, many died far away from their homeland and became “hungry ghosts”. Delving into this important part of history, Reihana revisits the story of the SS Ventnor, which in 1902 was en route to Hong Kong and Canton carrying coal and 500 boxes with the remains of the Chinese gold miners. During a storm, the ship sank close to a Māori settlement south of Hokianga on the North Island of New Zealand, where the Māoris found and gathered the lost remains and buried them ceremonially according to their customs.

Venue address: F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun

Tai Kwun Contemporary’s BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair is back for its sixth year. Held from 30 August to 1 September 2024, the latest edition hosts the largest number of exhibitors since its inception: over 110 local and international publishers, artists, booksellers and organisations will be featured across all floors of JC Contemporary at Tai Kwun. The three-day event will also feature a robust series of programmes (displays, performances, talks, workshops), together with Code.Xcess in the Artists’ Book Library. The special project explores how artists play with “codes”—using calendars, cartoons, dictionaries, digital programming language, guidebooks, karaoke, and more—to rethink how such structures form and affect our knowledge, understanding, and behaviour.

This year’s BOOKED: promises to be another exciting edition, and features a range of new and returning exhibitors from Hong Kong and abroad, including Printed Matter (New York), The Book Society / mediabus (Seoul), ZINECOOP (Hong Kong), Lubok Verlag (Germany), Center for Art Research and Alliances (New York), Hauser & Wirth Publications (Hong Kong, Zurich), Zen Foto Gallery (Tokyo), one half in (Zhejiang), In Plain Words (Singapore), and more. Various exhibitors in this year’s art book fair present publications that explore the idea of regeneration, be it rediscovering tradition, revitalising talent, or reinventing convention. From new publications to their articulation through timely projects and thought-provoking public programmes, this edition of the fair will offer various cultural and artistic perspectives to reimagine the familiar.

Book your tickets.

Venue address: JC Contemporary, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Central

In a very short space of time, InnerGlow has captured the imagination of the Hong Kong public and a sense of curiosity and anticipation is developing as InnerGlow 2024 approaches. Tai Kwun’s Creative and Technical Partner for InnerGlow is The Electric Canvas — the brilliant minds behind so many of the architectural projection mapped spectacles that pulled the world’s focus onto Vivid Sydney from its very first year.

Apart from taking the creative lead in the first two seasons of InnerGlow, The Electric Canvas has been working closely with Tai Kwun to spot talent for future productions of InnerGlow so that, through this remarkably generous partner, Tai Kwun can help to build up Hong Kong’s capability in this highly specialised field in which the lines between creative artists and technical geeks become blurred while the end results come ever more sharply into focus.

Hong Kong’s unique visual identity as expressed through its intangible cultural heritage, like the Tai Hang Fire Dragon — will find its way into the aesthetic looks of InnerGlow 2024’s Parade Ground performance Dragon Tales.

Parade Ground 6:30pm- 9pm (Every half hour)
Prison Yard 6:45pm- 9:15pm
(except 10-11.02)

Make & Believe is the the second exhibition of ARTS • TECH Exhibition 2.0 presented by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council this year. Curated and produced by Orlean Lai, this performative exhibition examines the notions of illusion and reality through theatrical performances, encompassing a spectrum of sounds, performances, and scenography.

Departing from traditional theatrical spaces, Make & Believe invites visitors to embark on an immersive exploration of its performative aspects within an exhibition space, creating a dynamic and interactive experience. Embodying the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), it offers a multi-sensory encounter by seamlessly integrating visual elements and scenography, fostering active observation and sensory perception. Throughout the exhibition’s opening hours, visitors will be treated to periodic live performances by performing artists and musicians. These captivating moments, in harmony with the carefully curated objects, scenography, lighting, and soundscapes, will serve as guides, leading visitors on captivating artistic journeys. Visitors can register online for free to experience how different mediums within the exhibition space collectively intertwine and resonate with one another to form one cohesive experience, while preserving each individual artist’s creative authenticity.

Venue address: F Hall Studio, Block 17, Tai Kwun

Green Snake: Women-Centred Ecologies focuses on the connections between art and larger themes of ecology in the context of the climate crisis. The exhibition asks what alternative narratives are activated through artists' visions that celebrate nature as an all-encompassing and generative force, many of them grounded in notions of care and interrelationship that are central to ecofeminism—that natural sustainability is based on the equality of human, nature, and other beings.

The exhibition references the mythological snake figure in East Asian culture, which often takes the form of a woman when walking amongst humans. Highlighting the green snake's potential for transformation and renewal—when snakes grow, they shed their skins—the exhibition is directly inspired by an ancient Chinese folktale, dating back at least 1000 years, about two powerful snake-demon sisters, White Snake and Green Snake, whose story reveals themes of agency, sisterhood, and gender fluidity. On another level, in the exhibition, the snake's sinuous curves echo the geomorphology of river systems and the vital energy of the water flowing through them. A number of artists in the exhibition have long been interested in and researching specific river ecosystems and mythologies. The exhibition thus deepens the dialogue between works by artists whose practice is rooted in geographies with longstanding political and environmental issues.

Venue address: JC Contemporary, Tai Kwun, Central

Immortal souls, past lives, and cyberpunk futures fuse in a psychedelic solo exhibition by the Hong Kong artist Kongkee, which follows legendary Chinese poet Qu Yuan (c. 339-278 BCE), a singular commemorated hero of the annual Dragon Boat Festival holiday.

Kongkee’s animated film Dragon’s Delusion begins after Qu Yuan’s untimely ending, in which he drowned himself in a river, dejected and in despair over the state of affairs of those tumultuous times. From there, Kongkee imagines the poet’s resurrection 2,000 years after his death, from the waters of the Kingdom of Chu into a cyberpunk future. As his soul wanders a landscape filled with cyborgs and surprising romantic reunions, several worlds collide, reflecting Kongkee’s own philosophical outlook on the past and Qu Yuan’s futuristic language that possessed its own wandering quality and inspired generations of artists. Part comic book, part motion picture, part speculative journey, Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk is an immersive experience complete with a large-scale LED installation and site-specific neon works, transforming Tai Kwun’s heritage site into a cyberpunk universe that bridges the past and the future.
(Image Courtesy of the artist and Penguin Lab. Copyright © 2021 the artist)

Venue address: Duplex Studio, Block 01, Tai Kwun, Central

This summer, Tai Kwun’s Laundry Steps will be transformed into a riotous electrified streetscape crowned by a gawdy tiara of authentic and original Hong Kong neon signs, rescued, restored and conserved and now returned to full public view. Meanwhile, in the Block 01 Duplex Studio, the ingenious imagination and creative problem-solving of Hong Kong’s legendary neon masters will be explored with exquisite traditional and contemporary examples which stretched and twisted the physical limits of the glass-blowers art with the beguiling magic of the snake-charmer.

Vital Signs celebrates the skill, craftsmanship, audacity, competitiveness, precision, and can-do mindset of the neon masters – qualities which are at the heart of Hong Kong’s true character and remain in the DNA of its citizens, as essential as a pulse.

Venue address: Block 01 Duplex Studio & Laundry Steps

Featuring sculptural, photographic and filmic works by the Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, the immersive exhibition HOPE taps into our hopes and fears about the impact of science on humanity. Her hyperrealistic and surreal works, often rooted in art historical forms, explore various “unexpected consequences”, whether negative or positive. HOPE raises important questions about the nature of history, progress, and technology, and ponders our collective ability to create warm and caring relationships and to live lovingly with each other.

Online Tickets:
$60 (Regular) / $50 (Concession)
On Site Tickets:
$70 (Regular) / $60 (Concession)

Venue address: 1/F, 3/F JC Contemporary, 1/F F Hall, Tai Kwun, Central

Unfurl is a garden like no other. Nature, art and technology have combined to create this visual spectacle consisting of 19 plants, nine of which are massive robots. The interactive, gentle giant  in Unfurl are made from fabric and air, towering as high as a double-decker bus. They form a dreamscape where the plants can sense that you have come to visit and thus reach out to connect. The calming retreat from the bustling city is full of light, colour and sounds, guaranteed to enchant children and adults alike. 

As part of Tai Kwun’s 5th Anniversary Celebration programme, Unfurl will make its Asian debut throughout Tai Kwun’s Parade Ground from May 23 to 31. To create a friendly garden atmosphere for Unfurl, a grass lawn will be built at the Parade Ground while the interactive experience is suitable for all ages and open to the public free of charge. Families and individuals are both welcome to Unfurl, a joyful experience not to be missed that celebrates the wonder and intelligence of nature’s design sensibilities and makes space for human connection and play.

Creative Team 
Director of Robotics: Robert Nixdorf
Director of Technology: Richard Sewell 
Producer: Emma Powell

Venue address: Parade Ground, Tai Kwun

Tai Kwun Contemporary's BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair 2023 is returning for its fifth edition, with local, regional, and international exhibitors joining in person. Extending across the gallery spaces of JC Contemporary and F Hall in Tai Kwun, this latest edition also launches "Sounds Like Print” (28 April to November 2023), a project that explores the intersection of “sound” and “print”.

Featuring more than 80 artists, publishers, organisations, and booksellers, BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair also includes special displays by the Hong Kong photographer Kurt Tong, the Swiss independent publishing house Nieves, and the French publisher onestar press / Three Star Books, along with a wide range of public programming such as talks, workshops, and performances (more details to come).

BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair underscores Tai Kwun Contemporary's dedication to providing a platform for creative practitioners and publishers who are invested in books as a medium of artistic and intellectual expression while providing an opportunity for public audiences to enjoy and engage with these materials as art, and as an important resource for learning and research.

$40 (Regular ticket)
$30 (Concession ticket for full-time students, people with disabilities and senior citizens aged 60 or above)

Location: 1/F Galleries (JC Contemporary & F Hall)
2/F Artists’ Book Library

Rooted in a shared commitment to preservation of local craftsmanship, the collaboration between La Prairie and Chankalun depicts an act of conservation of heritage and natural wonders. Inspired by the pristine nature of Switzerland’s landscape, ‘Light as Air’ brings a new light from Switzerland to Hong Kong. Drawn from instantaneous air quality index of Montreux, the installation “breathes” with a unique lighting effect, setting it to be the first interactive neon installation in Hong Kong.

Mar 22-26: 11am-9pm; Mar 27: 11am-4pm

DigiRadiance is a brand-new digital programme that transforms the F Hall Studio into an immersive project space. The first programme takes the original radial plan of Victoria Gaol as a point of departure revisiting Tai Kwun’s prison history and its significance in the early formation of Law and Order in Hong Kong. Victoria Gaol is the first prison in Hong Kong and forms a significant part of the heritage compound. By exploring the architectural materiality and spatial configuration, it exposes the experience of imprisonment and its extended implication in societal discourse such as discipline, punishment, and reform.

The digital exhibition consists of two parts: a 30-minute immersive show, created by artists Vvzela Kook and Ng Tsz Kwan, presented at F Hall Studio; and five Augmented Reality checkpoints across the Prison Yard and D Hall that will take you on a journey that explores Tai Kwun’s history. The show starts on the hour and a half past every hour between 11am and 7pm. Each show has a capacity of 30 people. Please register at the entrance of the F Hall Studio.

Curator: Ying Kwok
Assistant Curator: Jims Lam

Venue address: F Hall Studio, Tai Kwun, Central

Following the enormous public success of the first InnerGlow in September, this engrossing project takes on a deeper dimension in January 2023 as some of Hong Kong’s brightest and most original talent joins hands with our Creative and Technical Partner, The Electric Canvas, to devise and create an entirely new program for January 2023.

While the first InnerGlow told the imagined history of the Barrack Block, InnerGlow 2023 will take audiences into an entirely different world in which the pure architecture of Tai Kwun becomes the main player. Join us as a series of abstract themes play with and animate the building itself to such an extent that all of those imposing classical architectural elements are transformed, morphed and choreographed right before our (disbelieving) eyes. The show will make references to familiar Hong Kong images and moods, ranging from fireworks and traditional festivities to the unique handwriting of Hong Kong neon, and at times defy the very foundational logic of our building’s geometry.

The programme is made possible with core funding provided by The Hong Kong Jockey Club through its Charities Trust as one of Tai Kwun’s arts and heritage programmes, and CLP Holdings Limited as the Principal Sponsor.

This 15-minute fantasy is shown six times each evening, on the half hour starting at 6:30pm.

Venue address: Parade Ground, Tai Kwun, Central

What’s the perfect gift for the holiday season? Often, it’s the intangible things that have the most lasting impression – those spontaneous smiles, those warm embraces, those moments shared together. Christmas is that special time of year where these little things take on an extra special meaning. It’s this spirit that Tai Kwun and The Hong Kong Jockey Club (“HKJC”) are channelling this Christmas with Simple Gifts of Joy. It’s a month-long celebration of joy, giving and togetherness; where we can come together with family and friends, revel in the spirit of the season, and savour those moments that truly matter.

Starting from 1 December, Tai Kwun will transform into a glorious festive destination full of colour, music and fun, where joyous performances will come alive and fill the air with celebration. Of course, there will be a Christmas tree – a grand, 12-metre-tall beauty that will be the centrepiece of Tai Kwun’s Parade Ground, accompanied every evening by a dazzling light show. And during the month, there will be an array of circus performances, Christmas music, delightful surprises and hidden treats that will create a unique festive atmosphere right across the complex. (1 December 2022-2 January 2023)

Snap the Joy

Christmas is a time for creating memories that will last a lifetime. As visitors make their way through Tai Kwun, they will come across festive “Snap the Joy” photobooths to capture those spontaneous moments of happiness with friends and family. Join TK Fans for exclusive online registration.

Tai Kwun Circus Plays

"Tai Kwun Circus Plays" proudly enters its fifth edition! From December to January, circus veterans in town and around the world will get together at Tai Kwun to present an array of breathtaking contemporary circus performances. Let's have a merry juggling festive season together with our friends and family! The circus season will kick off with an opening concert The Gift of Music by Noēma, the city's vocal ensemble, followed by LIFE Event No. 2 by the pioneering British circus group Gandini Juggling. UniCircle Flow from Japan will enthral audiences with their vigorous unicycling dance show, Rock It! Unicycle.

Only Bones v1.0, the award-winning solo show created by New Zealand physical theatre and mime artist Thomas Monckton, will come to Tai Kwun to deliver to audiences a joyful Christmas.Local creative team TS Crew, veteran choreographer Mui Cheuk Yin, and emerging local circus talents, will add a local touch and bring street vbes to life in Ho! Ho! Ho! Monkey King is Coming To Town and New Boom In Circus. The annual circus carnival will culminate with the Ting-koo-ki Mad Skills Gala and Battle (TKK), a passionate circus battle between top non-local jugglers from Taiwan, Costa Rica, Belgium and Brazil, as we welcome the arrival of 2023 at Tai Kwun.

Having showcased the unique and intimate atmosphere which can be conjured by the dramatically walled Prison Yard during 2019’s Projekt Berlin, Tai Kwun unveils a new Prison Yard Festival: Music from within, stretching from 30th November to 10th December 2022. For 11 days, Tai Kwun’s Prison Yard will be transformed into a performance space with a magical atmosphere not found anywhere else in the city, a natural home for music to take one on a heartwarming and soul-searching journey. Musicophiles are invited to find solace inside the festival, as the healing power of music liberates us from feelings of isolation, reminding the city of the joy it feels when we are all reunited.

Prison Yard Festival: Music from within brings together like-minded musicians, ensembles of fine instrumentalists, composers, performers, and, of course, audiences to create and share music in the unique and intimate setting of the Prison Yard. 6 broad- ranging performances will be presented. Amongst them, the unmissable highlight is the long-awaited Asian debut of Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński with the fine Italian ensemble il Pomo d’Oro as the Festival’s finale.

True to its title, Music from within begins indoors, in the JC Cube. And true to its location overlooking the Prison Yard, the festival opens with LENK Quartet performing music written “on the inside”. French composer Olivier Messiaen was a prisoner in a German prisoner-of-war camp in Poland in 1940 and composed Quartet for the End of Time for himself and three fine musicians who were among the other POWs in the camp. Through his extraordinary imagination, Messiaen led his ensemble, and his audience, in an escape from the confines of prison, flying above the material world in cosmic freedom. “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension.”

The monumental Goldberg Variations are heard in a new light when pianist Rachel Cheung and lighting designer Amy Chan collaborate to realise Bach’s great keyboard composition from 1741 through a distinctly 21st-century lens.

Music emerges from within as the outdoor stage of the Prison Yard hosts a series of highly atmospheric evening concerts, including two chamber concerts by some of the finest musicians from the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Revered Hong Kong pianist Nancy Loo will perform Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata under the December full moon.

The Prison Yard Festival will close with the unstoppable energy of baroque ensemble il Pomo d’Oro with the stellar Polish countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński, making his Asian debut with two nights of dazzling virtuosity from the 17th and 18th centuries. Orliński is known as one of the world’s leading singers, triumphing on stage, in concert, and on recording, with sold-out concerts and recitals throughout Europe and the United States.

Gender equality is a necessary foundation for a peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable world. How far have we come in the quest for gender equality in our city? Can the past illuminate the present and provide insight into a better future?

Gender & Space adopts a gender lens to revisit the history of our heritage site over its first hundred years from 1841 to 1941. It seeks to redress the underrepresentation of women in the gendered spaces of the Central Police Station compound by sharing the stories and experiences of those often overlooked to fill a gap in its history.

This exhibition further explores the experiences of several different women in a society undergoing rapid change. It includes those who were unfree, powerless, and endured gender inequality, as well as those who sought avenues of change. The exhibition seeks to show that gender identity is complex, multilayered, and ever-changing. Acknowledging the multidimensional nature of gender and the limitations of the binary system, we may ask whygender norms have continued throughout history to shape social consciousness, even to today.

This exhibition invites reflection on how every individual has the power to bring positive change and help build an equal and inclusive society.

Venue address: Block 01 Duplex Studio, Tai Kwun

Mid-autumn heralds the brightest moon of the year as well as the gradual shortening of days as we begin the slow descent into winter. This year, a new signature event designed for the whole family will light up Tai Kwun’s Parade Ground every night during a three-week season. InnerGlow features the dazzling creativity and technological ingenuity of The Electric Canvas, who, along with four groups of local artists, have reimagined Tai Kwun’s 160-year-old Barracks Block.

This action-packed 12-minute fantasy is shown five times each evening at Parade Ground, on the half hour starting at 7pm.

The programme is supported by Hong Kong Jockey Club and Principal Sponsor CLP Holdings Limited.

A major new exhibition by the internationally renowned Swiss media artist Pipilotti Rist will land in Hong Kong in Summer 2022, taking over all Tai Kwun Contemporary galleries and beyond. Rist’s signature moving image installations—highly immersive, deeply sensual, and remarkably insightful—wrap visitors with a virtual hug of sounds, colours, and moving images. Visitors can walk and sprawl within her mesmerising installations, which prompt meditative introspection along with joy and exhilaration, opening up explorations of the body and the image, of exterior environments and interior mindscapes. This high-profile exhibition offers major works from Pipilotti Rist’s oeuvre along with newly commissioned site-specific works for Tai Kwun, in the galleries, on the Prison Yard and elsewhere in Tai Kwun. 

Lead Sponsor: Indosuez Wealth Management

Curator: Tobias Berger

3 August – 27 November 2022

Sunday – Thursday 10 am – 8 pm (Closed on Mondays)

Friday – Saturday 11 am – 9 pm

95 HKD (Adults) | 75 HKD (Concession)

Tickets are available online from July

Throughout all the world’s cultures, trees have always had an intimate connection with us physically, biologically, and emotionally. Apart from providing us with food, shelter, and clean air, trees are silent witnesses to our transient existence, as they remain rooted in one place throughout their lives.

However, trees are as mortal as human beings. They constantly face existential threats arising from the damages inflicted on the environment by mankind’s insatiable appetite for consumption and thoughtless expansion. Pollution, deforestation, logging, urban expansion, and climate change pose clear dangers for the future of trees, as super typhoon Mangkut unforgettably demonstrated in 2018, leaving 55,000 trees devastated in its wake.

This exhibition acknowledges the vital role that trees play in our daily lives and explores some of the most advanced ways of protecting, preserving, and nurturing them to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy the benefits that trees bring to us.

Artists: Lau Chi Chung, Marshmallow Laser Feast, Ng Ka Chun, Anson Wong, Zheng Bo

Venue address: Block 01 Duplex Studio, Tai Kwun

Breaching Sanctum is an exhibition of existing and newly commissioned art and design works alongside related research and reference materials, public programmes, and a publication in the form of a “reader”. The project delves into the work of a generation of Chinese female artists, designers, and architects born in the 1980s—on the cusp of the 1990s—and the influence of that era, alongside current developments, innovations, and pressures connected to urbanism, sustainability, and the built environment, on their work. The project also serves as a means of breaking down barriers that have often been in the path of female practitioners’ research and achievements.

Artists: Leelee Chan, Tap Chan, Joyce Wang Studio, Ko Sin Tung, and Zhang Ruyi

Curator: Ingrid Pui Yee Chu

BREACHINGSANCTUM.NET

Programmes:

RSVP to reserve a time slot  

Curator's Tour: Daily｜1pm

Venue address: F Hall Studio, G/F, Block 17, Tai Kwun

Welcome to the fourth edition of BOOKED: Hong Kong Art Book Fair! Presented by Tai Kwun Contemporary, the art book fair welcomes over 80 local, regional, and international exhibitors—including publishers, artists, booksellers, and organisations—complemented by a programme of book launches, talks, workshops, displays and performances. BOOKED: provides a platform for creative practitioners and publishers who are invested in books as a medium of artistic and intellectual expression to share their work with diverse audiences.

Marking its return to the Tai Kwun Contemporary galleries, this forthcoming edition of BOOKED: once again features Hong Kong–based exhibitors along with our twinning programme, which offers non-local exhibitors the opportunity to participate from a distance, and for disparate people and communities to stay connected over great distances through books. In light of ongoing travel restrictions, BOOKED: highlights how the distribution of books can serve as its own form of “travelling” by expanding horizons and sparking one’s imagination.

Dates and Times:
16 Dec 2021 (Thu) | 3pm–7pm
17 Dec 2021 (Fri) | 3pm–9pm
18 Dec 2021 (Sat) | 12pm–7pm
19 Dec 2021 (Sun) | 12pm–7pm

Book tickets
Venue address: 1/F Galleries (JC Contemporary & F Hall) Tai Kwun, 10 Hollywood Road, Central

It’s winter, the season of “Tai Kwun Circus Plays”! During the Christmas and New Year holidays, our city’s circus artists will join acrobatic veterans from around the world to present an array of dreamy, exciting, and innovative circus performances and workshops.

Flotados (Spain) │ 15–19.12.2021 7:30pm

Created by the prize-winning Spanish troupe David Moreno Cia. & Cristina Calleja, Flotados is an otherworldly outdoor circus performance that will  take over the Parade Ground during Tai Kwun’s Circus Plays. Performing from a grand piano suspended a gravity-defying 8 metres overhead, two performers tell an enchanting love story through music, dance, acrobatics and video projections. Take a step back and look into the night sky, follow the elegant moves of the performers and immerse yourself in a universe of dreams. A romantic and holistic aerial dance is set to kick start an amazing Christmas for Tai Kwun guests.

The ChristMice Cracker (Hong Kong) │ 24–27.12.2021

Inspired by the classical ballet The Nutcracker,  Hong Kong’s own, home-grown physical theatre troupe TS Crew  expands its most dramatic “battle” scene  to create The ChristMice Cracker. With local flavours sprinkled to this classic, the exhilarating outdoor performance features lion dance, Chinese Opera, circus, acrobats, and beatboxing, as well as street performance spirits including unicycles, stilts and fire-breathing. Performed by a dozen of highly skilled local artists, this hybrid work of theatre, gala and contemporary circus is set to turn the Parade Ground into the dreamland of Clara and the Prince with a unique “Hong Kong” twist over the Christmas long weekend.

Ting-koo-ki Mad Skills Battle (Hong Kong x Taiwan) │31.12.2021–02.01.2022

Returning to Tai Kwun for the third year, Ting-Koo-Ki Mad Skills Battle and Gala are the most exciting circus party to showcase local and Taiwanese circus talents on the  outdoor stage in the Parade Ground. Taking place over the New Year, the Gala celebrates each individual performer’s  edgiest acts, before they participate in the Battle to win the audience’s vote in one-on-one challenges.

A co-produced circus movie, Isabella by Tai Kwun and Hsingho Co., will also be presented online in the New Year. Directed by Portuguese circus artist Ricardo S. Mendes, the film features circus talents from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Portugal, Italy and France along with their unique props. The film presents a touching story of circus performers’ lives as they exist as both human beings and artists

CircusCracker Workshops │24.12.2021–02.01.2022

From Christmas Eve to the New Year, a series of workshops echoing the theme of “Nutcracker” will be available to the public, free-of-charge. Participants will first enjoy the demonstration by the professional artists, before they learn and experience the crafts and tricks first-hand. Designed for families, the CircusCracker Workshops encompass crystal ball, Kendama, puppet-making and more. Join and challenge yourself this season to unleash the untapped potential within you!

Circus Camp for Professionals│01–02.01.2022

Returning with critical acclaim, the world’s leading juggling company Gandini Juggling will host another year of advanced training workshop for local jugglers and choreographers. SeanGandini and Kati Ylä-Hokkala, the Artistic Directors of the company, will take their recent workLIFE, inspired by Merce Cunningham, as the lead to explore the concept of “layering” as well as the relationship between choreography and contemporary circus.

Serendipity brings together urban observers and artists as they record tales from everyday life in the Central and Sheung Wan neighbourhood, and capture the complexities of the urban fabric through creative use of living spaces. “Modernologio”, an everyday life observation practice originated in Japan, has been adopted as the research method in this exhibition, to identify the interconnections between people, space and activity.

Bringing creativity into daily lives, fascinating street activities have emerged in and around our neighbourhood, and in order to better observe and systematically outline these traces of urban activities, a research team, led by Brian Kwok, Hong Kong Polytechnic University ‘s Associate Professor of School of Design, assumed the roles of urban observers in the past few months. Strolling through numerous streets and alleys, flyovers, open-air markets, recreational parks and crisis-crossing slopes and stairs in the area to discover seemingly mundane people and things, the urban observers pieced together fragments of stories hidden within different corners of urban space.

Four intriguing stories tucked away in corners of our neighbourhood and seven creative responses by local artists Annisa Cheung, Choi Sai Ho, South Ho, Charles Kwong, Ocean Leung, Frank Tang Kai Yiu, and Nerve to the environment in the area form part of this exhibition. 

Venue address: Block 01 Duplex Studio Prison Yard Lower E Hall