Lan Su Yuan Recreated

涵虛 Cosmetic

錦雲 Brocade Cloud

浣花春雨 Flowers Bathing in Spring Rain

知魚 Knowing the fish

鎖月 Moon-locking

畫舫煙雨 Painted boat in Misty Rain

沁香 Permeating Fragrance

倒影清漪 Reflections in Clear Ripples

半窗擁翠 Half a window Clustered in Green

Portland and Suzhou became sister cities in 1988. Portland Classical Chinese Garden was opened in September 2000. The Garden is located on a common land and run by a non-profit organization, “Portland Classical Chinese Garden”. Chinese Garden designers and craftsmen from China were invited and built the Garden according to the design from Ming Dynasty as an authentic scholar’s garden in Suzhou. The aim of the Garden is to cultivate an interest of Chinese culture in the local community. In the meantime, the Garden is also a testimony of the friendly cultural exchange between the two sister cities.

This work is named “Lan Su Yuan Recreated ”(再現蘭蘇園). Collecting materials from the neighbourhood such as abandoned stuffs and garbage was the first step in creating this work. With these abandoned materials, a local Portland-styled “Lan Su Yuan” was created. After talking with some locals residing in Portland, it was found that most of them have not visited “Lan Su Yuan” before. Their feelings towards a Chinese garden in a Western city were mixed with unfamiliarity and foreignness. Therefore, this work was made with materials they are familiar with so as to recreate “Lan Su Yuan” in a new way, and yet retaining the essence of traditional Chinese culture.

-by Hanison Lau

在遙遠而陌生的國度裡
剛巧與自家事物撞個正
在滿佈皓星的天空下竟是靈石清波
奇亭巧榭
別有一壺天地
是似曾相識
是身同感受
恰遇他鄉故人
訴不盡人間風月
我不是為本國代言
只是在落差中找尋那靈犀一點通
為此作些注釋而以

---劉學成

Poem emerging from the unwanted

What can you make out of trash like sponges, tissue wipes, fragments of old rug, and cracked trunk? A cinematic setting of Eliot’s Waste Land or a blizzard garbage compactor robot keeping company with Wall-E? Instead Hanison Lau sees the light and beauty in these unwanted objects to emulate the poetics of Chinese garden – a sophisticated union between natural landscape and man-made feat of engineering. Inspired by the harmonious landscapes of water, stones, pavilions, and poetry in the Portland Classical Chinese Garden, Lau comes back with an intriguing installation of the abandoned objects to create a tactile poem that transcends the ambience of a spiritual utopia for one to reconnect with the traditional culture.

Lau’s poetry of leftover starts playing with the names of the architecture elements in the Portland garden, such as Hall of Brocade Cloud and ‘Reflection in Clear Ripples’, a lounge house, and infuses traditional aesthetics and contemporary imaginations into the materiality of the unwanted. The result is a daring interplay between materials and the artist’s thoughts in constructing a poetic space exploring the cultural complexity and elegance of the past and what it means to our vacuous present.

The centre piece of this ‘garden’ is an installation known as ‘Knowing the Fish’. On a basic level, the work refers to the square pavilion in the Portland garden where visitors can appreciate the fish swimming in the pond gracefully. It also draws inspiration from the famous dialogue between the Daoist philosopher, Zhuangzi, and his friend, Hui Shi, of what fish enjoys. Whilst Hui Shi challenges Zhuangzi being a person cannot possibly know whether a fish is happy or not, Zhuangi arguing that by observing how fish darts around the river, he feels the happiness of fish as the creature is being itself in its own natural habitat. To re-enact the philosophical debate over the joy of fish, Lau puts two chairs in the manner of ‘face-to-face dialogue’ among which lies the ‘contemplative pond’ – a yellow sponge mattress attached with blue patches of cleaning tissues. This construction is concise and yet powerful in materializing the multi-layered readings of ‘knowing the fish’: it can be a reminiscence of sharing a water scene with friends or a stimulating discussion of what is a true nature of fish, and perhaps, being itself. Its simplicity leaves infinite space urging viewers to ponder upon what to know about, how we can understand the meanings of the ‘fish’ and to whom we can share a meaningful debate.

In further exploring cultural significance of the scenic garden, Lau’s ‘Cosmetic’ transforming the Tower of Cosmetic Reflections, the only two-story building within the garden into a philosophical treaty of what nature means to human. Like the original tower, this piece offers a refreshing perspective that encourages audience to appreciate the flow of life. Upper part of this piece is a white paper-mâché showing the solid, yet fluid faces of a rock mountain. With delicate lighting design, the mountain casts a hazy shadow that magnifies itself to be a formidable presence, as if it was alive. Interestingly, another half of the work is a black, twisted paper-cutting of a landscape that almost feels like a crude imitation to the white hill. Light and dark, unframed and framed, a towering sculpture and its flat representation… create striking contrast that seems to be an artist’s version of Taiji diagram, embracing the organic balance between yin and yang, emptiness and fullness, and stillness and movements. In spite of the variations in texture, colour and perspective, the crisp and deep curve lines can be easily discerned from both forms of the landscapes in conveying a sense of holistic harmony. Such an antithesis gracefully suggests that energy can be found in minimum and free flowing thoughts are revealed in the medium. ‘Cosmetic’, as its names hints, is thus, a cosmos within an artist’s universe, rendering the invisible.

Clearly, Lau’s ‘Lan Su Yuan re-create’ is anything, but nostalgic construction of a Chinese garden. And yet, it strives to be a contemporary poem exploring the essence of the traditional garden: aeons are but a moment and beauty is always within grasp.

Vivian Ting

(Vivian Ting received PhD researcher from the Department of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research explores material culture theories and traditional aesthetics in examining human-object relationship in historical context. )

棄物之詩﹕「蘭蘇園再現」

老枝破框冒出鬧烘烘的綠意，裂縫順著枯木流淌成一道河流…誠然，破窗框、殘枝、海棉墊、舊椅子…盡是無用之棄物。而劉學成卻化無為有，從中發掘出中國園林—自然山水與人工建築和諧協奏的詩歌。去年波特蘭之旅讓劉氏從古色古香的「蘭蘇園」取得靈感，透過當地棄置的物品將傳統庭園山水亭樓、無形無相的意境轉換成有形有質的當代詩篇。這篇棄物之詩將當代想像與古典美學融冶一爐，以無用的日常物重新詮釋蘭蘇園各景觀的典故。於是富時代氣息的物料與藝術家的巧思共譜出如詩似畫的簡約空間，探究傳統豐富的蘊藏及其對當下無根文化的啟發。

「蘭蘇園再現」其中一件引人入勝的組件名為「知魚」。知魚亭本為三面臨水的榭臺，供遊人細賞遊魚從容出遊的勝景。所謂「知魚」並不止於觀魚，更在於對人生自適的反思。遙想莊子與好友惠施於濠梁散步，莊子看見水中魚群悠悠然戲水，以為「魚之樂」莫若此。惠施卻質問莊子是人而不是魚，何從得知魚的感受。殊不知莊子眼中既無人無魚之別，只想到魚遊於水正是順其本性怡然自得，那就是「樂」。由閒暇觀魚到哲人知魚，劉氏將兩張舊椅子設置得像面對面的交流，兩椅之間又設一潭海棉墊與抹車紙相映成的「省思池」。這簡潔有力的裝置許是與友人魚塘戲水的回憶，又或是重現如何「知魚之樂」的爭論，令作品平添了幾層不同的解讀。究竟我們所知何事何物﹖何謂自然自適的生命﹖又何從與人建立深層的交流﹖

傳統園林的景致不但取裁自古典文學藝術，更借鑑於道家「天一合人」的態度，劉氏的另一組件借「涵虛閣」之名，進一步探索人與自然環境關係。涵虛閣是園內唯一的兩層木樓建築，俾遊人登臨山水，以遺襟懷。物如其樓，劉氏的「涵虛」亦置放於高處以另一角度審視大千世界虛實相交的面相。是作上半部份由白暟暟的混凝紙拼貼成一座座遠近高低各不同的山峰。加上精心安排的燈光將山岳一幢幢的投影映現於牆上，使之如巨靈神降臨般高深莫測。而下半部但見框架內一片左折右疊的黛黑剪紙山景，仿若如那座白峰的倒影。白與黑、不著邊際與嵌框架、矗立的雕塑或平面的剪紙…種種對照倒似是藝術家的《太極圖》，包含著陰陽、虛實、動靜之間微妙的張力。有趣的是，即使兩組山色的質感、顏色、情態不盡相同，但所呈現的線條卻同樣如斧劈刀削，令作品有無、虛實等異趣一一諧協起來。「涵虛」所包含不獨是難以捉摸的虛空，而是喻妙於微，發目所未見的弘外之音。

「蘭蘇園再現」以當代想像重現傳統園林「物映心境，而為物化」的意境，而非一味沉溺於古老文化的餘緒。這是一篇有形有相的詩歌，力求捕捉歷史流光間，萬物無言無聲的大美。

丁穎茵