九仞 Memory Smuggler: Natalie CHU Lok Ting 朱樂庭, HO Siu Kee 何兆基, Jay LAU Ka Chun 劉家俊, LI Ning 李寧

九仞 Memory Smuggler is the inaugural exhibition of To Art House 嚮渡藝術空間. Invited by the founding team, four Hong Kong artists—Natalie CHU Lok Ting 朱樂庭, HO Siu Kee 何兆基, Jay LAU Ka Chun 劉家俊, LI Ning 李寧 —have collaborated since the art house’s construction phase to help define an experiment in art and articulate the vision for this new place.

Founded in the fringe of industrial Fo Tan 火炭 by the Tai Mo 大帽 mountain range, To Art’s unique vantage point inspires the four artists to delve into the area’s natural and anthropological past and future. In dialectics between handmade artifacts and natural elements, and often via digital objects, they find expressions of memory crisscrossing across time, even lapping recursively, but never lose their ground. In the counterpointing ensemble of their individual practices, a first quartet emerges.

Natalie CHU Lok Ting 朱樂庭 adopts quasi-archaeological methods on the settlements and ruins in the hills of Fo Tan. Combining field and archival research, scavenging and interviews, Chu searches in the urban wilderness memories of the past and the future by developing negative spaces in her cement-based installations.

HO Siu Kee 何兆基’s sculpture series "Remnants of Mountain-Making 造山餘緒" presents the Chinese notion of mountain 山 as both geological features and literati constructs. Through recursive reflections between handmade and digital objects, Ho examines how mountain becomes a rich and multifaceted cultural symbol and origin.

Jay LAU Ka Chun 劉家俊 reflects on his studio experience in Fo Tan, cementing digital imagery in a concrete microcosm spanning Hong Kong’s industrial-political transformations and the renovation of To Art space itself. Through his unique print-making experimentations, Lau threads memories back in this time and place.

LI Ning 李寧, through mixed-media prints and short movies, documents self-observation and captures modes of memory. Already in Li’s last-minute completion, To Art’s amorphous nascency, captured in cameo appearances, drifts in his personal mythology of recursivity and contingency.