For the past couple of years, I've been attending Fotanian with my friend, DL, and this is the first time that we actually started at two in the afternoon (which is the official start time). We ended up visiting studios until seven in the evening, and Jesus, we were exhausted by the end of it. Five hours of climbing up and down stairs and walking around!
Being a veteran of the Fotanian, I made sure I wore comfortable shoes and clothing. It gets quite cold in the New Territories, where Fotan is, but the thing is, I remember being super hot in 2009, thus I wore only a light jacket and miniskirt in 2010, which made me feel a bit cold. So this year, I decided to have semi-bare legs and bring a warm coat, just in case, kind of like a happy compromise.
Holy shit, now that I'm looking at the picture of my outfit, it's so dowdy. Seriously one of my worst looks, I would say. You can tell that I just wasn't feeling it. The thing is, I was determined to wear the mukluks as they are the only other flat shoes aside from trainers (that I've only worn once in France) that I own. I didn't want to wear any heels. (By the way, they are such a pain in the ass to put on, I ended up wrapping my be-socked feet in plastic wrap just so I could wriggle them into the boots. Still, they're obviously very warm and comfortable, my feet were toasty the whole time. I got these mukluks all the way back in 1999 (they were the first shoes I ever bought in Hong Kong when I first moved here!) in Mong Kok from some punk/metal accessories shop that's now closed.)
Anyway, I usually wear my mukluks with really short skirts and bright colours, but I considered the windiness issue, as well as the climbing issue, and decided that people were better off not getting a peek at my granny panties. Plus this dress has a really loose waist, so I could chow down during dinner. It's actually a cute dress, not that you'd see from this picture. Maybe I'll talk about it more next time when I do a post about the shop where I bought it from. The yellow cardigan is vintage.
Holy crap, I can't stop staring at how awful I look. I don't mind wearing clothes that are extremely tacky and in bad taste, but this is just one sad and boring outfit. And the mirror angle is making me look so stumpy. Alright, no more moving the mirror around.
So, let's begin! Fotan is an industrial area in the New Territories, and because of its cheap rent, a lot of artists have moved there to work (and sometimes live). Lately, rents have been increasing so it's possible that these poor kids will have to move somewhere else.
In this entry, I'm just going to focus on the buildings and the artists' residences and studios. I think the most exciting part about the Fotanian isn't so much getting to see artwork, but to see how people live and work. I know I'm not the only nosy (in Hokkien, we call nosy people "kepo") voyeur out there.
The artists live in a bunch of different buildings, so when you arrive at Fotan, you have to look for the organizers' table in order to pick up a map that tells you where to go.
Here we are at the lobby of the first building we visited.
This studio smells like pee, I feel so bad for the kids who have to work here.
This is one of the fancier studio/residential spaces. It belongs to artist Chow Chun Fai, who is famous for painting scenes from Hong Kong movies (you can see some of his paintings on the wall), as well as some kind of taxi cab fetish.
I think he's done a great job of making this space feel like a home.
That's the kitchen area on the left, and on the right is the platform where his bed is.
A better look at his paintings. It amuses me that he's inevitably surrounded by a bunch of chicks hanging on to his every word.
Looking at this makes me feel bad for my lost book collection. Oh well.
Another artists' studio cum home.
I don't know why, but I was so touched by these kids' bunkbeds.
A studio and office space. I was a bit taken aback by this space because it's so...office-y.
I mean, look at the cubicles! Wouldn't you want to become an artist in order to escape cubicle life?
Because I'm shameless, I managed to score wine twice. The first time was at this Russian art gallery that we deliberately visited because we knew they'd have wine. But by the time we got there, the bottle was almost empty, so I poured out what I could.
Then, luckily, we stumbled on another gallery that not only had red wine, but also smoked mussels (which I didn't eat because I don't trust seafood that's been left out for hours) and a giant mound of delicious Gouda cheese. I threw away all shame and poured out two cups of wine in a row, and massacred the cheese plate. DL and I had previously stopped over in Kowloon Tong to pick up pastries and drinks, but, you know, neither of us exercise so we're terribly unfit and need a lot of refueling.
Anyway, tomorrow, I'll be focussing on the actual artwork.
