logue

Time and Distance Hong Kong Art School 10th Anniversary

'Time and Distance'is a theme the School devotes more of its attention to as it enters a new decade of development and celebrates its 10th Anniversary. This theme, generated by staff members of the School via a series of open sharing, can be regarded as a summation of thoughts staff members have towards the School over its past 10 years of development. Carrying within it certain flexibility and a potentiality to give rise to a myriad of different views and concepts,'Time and Distance' is also a theme that signifies a culture that is unique to this School

'Time' could be interpreted as the physical process, the actual time, or the patience required for art making; the temporal length or the long history of art and human civilization; as well as the temporal distance, referring to perhaps a decade of time, the School has already gone through

'Distance'could be viewed as the geographical and conceptual coverage in terms of art learning, the distance (that ought to be generated) between an object (referring also to an art piece) and its beholder; and both the spatial and the cognitive distances the School has travelled over the past decade of time through local and international collaborations, outreach projects, as well as the relocation of School campuses

'Time and Distance', when coming together, may also be implying a notion that appears to go contrary to a common value prevailing in the 20th and 21st centuries, which tends to favor the celebration of speed and acceleration, and is prone to the embrace of instant culture Cultivation of art, aligning with the notion of'Time and Distance', can never be likened to an instant product or compared with any one-day process. It requires a substantial amount of time for nurturing and a travelling distance of and miles for conceptual growth and refinement. Art education in this School provides students with a gateway to revisit the value of'Time and Distance'which have been contributed to the development of human culture and which may have been forgotten or understood in a slightly different manner in the contemporary world This is absolutely not about asking students to simply ignore the ongoing pace and the contemporary trend out there; on the contrary, the School encourages students to have their eyes wide open, and to see always with yet another layer of thoughts, which should be of more profound nature connecting to the root of human civilization, in minds

Another noteworthy point is that when'Time'(to be presented as a vertical line) comes across'Distance'(to be presented as a horizontal line), a plus sign, a Greek cross, or more intriguingly, a Chinese character of 1O 1 O years) would then be conjured up (as shown at the top right corner), and this in a way reinforces the commemoration of the School's 10th Anniversary.

T I DISTANCE M E

A decade of time may sound prominent in terms of the life span of a human being; however, its importance may correspondingly dwindle when it is placed in the long span of human civilization, or maybe more specifically, art education history.

To step back in time, art education existed already in some forms back in the Greco-Roman time. As it developed through time, traces of art studios, where master-apprentice mode of teaching (apprenticeship) was mostly adopted, prevailed during the Renaissance period. More structured art schools and academies came into the picture starting from approximately the 17th century onwards in Europe and flourished from around the 19th century onwards in both Europe and North America

In Hong Kong, structured art schools may still be in the process of taking shape in this 21st century. Hong Kong Art School can be considered as one of the pioneers, which has been witnessing the growth and the change of the landscape, in this field. The School, though having walked through 10 years already, speaking, similar to art education in Hong Kong on the whole, is indeed still in its formative years of development. It still likens itself to a child who is waddling and learning to firmly stand on the ground and then carefully takes every step to move forward

It has been a pathway somehow full of thorns for the School {this child) to walk through in the past decade, and there may not be an absolutely splendid way ahead especially owing to the School's self-financing nature. It may hence also be exceptionally grateful and proud for the School to be able celebrate its first decade of growth; while with continuing confidence and definite it looks forward to another decade of development

There is neither a single word nor a single attempt that can concisely sum up deeds of the School or the time and the distance the School has been through over the past decade. This publication to be produced at this point and on this special occasion is hoping to mark off a new stage of development for the School, and to offer a handy as well as a collective overview of the School's past experience for the readers, and at the same time for the School to set foot on for both its retrospective and prospective reviews

Karen Lam Academic Registrar Hong Kong Art School (a division of Hong Kong Arts Centre) September 2010