HONG KONG.- Based in Tokyo, the avant-garde artist collective Chim↑Pom is a leading practitioner of the Japanese contemporary art scene. The group has been commissioned by The Mills Gallery, part of the heritage conservation project of Nan Fung Group, to stage their inaugural act in Hong Kong and invite the media to engage in their creative process on 12 August 2015.

It’s the wall world is an on-going project, initiated in 2014 at the Asian Art Biennale in Bangladesh. Developed in response to the aftermath of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the continuing and evolving installation consists of a video documentation, and component artworks accumulated from across the globe.

To create the module art pieces for It’s the wall world, Chim↑Pom cuts out jigsaw pieces from the white cube of a gallery space, in exchange for identically shaped pieces carved from surfaces found in the ‘real world’ – a garment factory in Dhaka, a vintage clothes shop in London, an alternative art space for children in Hiroshima, an abattoir in Dresden among many others. For the present commission, a piece will be taken from Hong Kong for the first time, from the interior surface of The Mills Gallery, a former spinning mill factory. Chim↑Pom’s carving of the jigsaw pieces will be added to It’s the wall world. The inclusion of The Mills in the artwork pays homage to Hong Kong’s unique developmental history, acknowledging the textile industries as local pillars of economic growth. The creative act is aligned with the heritage conservation philosophy of Nan Fung Group, who share Chim↑Pom’s ideal of preserving the cultural identity of a city’s landscape, whilst embedding it with new meanings to enrich knowledge and experience.

The pieces from The Mills Gallery will be exhibited alongside global ones at The Saatchi Gallery in London, as part of Chim↑Pom’s landmark solo show opening September 2015. The exhibited composition will be a large-scale jigsaw mural, juxtaposing separate realities that create cross-cultural dialogue and exchange. The puzzle pieces from The Mills Gallery will therefore be lent new contexts, slotting Hong Kong amidst a global narrative, as a metaphoric topography consisting of varied histories, memories and origins. Growing larger with every initiative, the artwork will be reconfigured with new layers of interpretation each time, building towards a universal chronicle.

Concurrently, the process of the artist’s exchange with local residents, and on this occasion members of staff of The Mills, will be documented and presented on video. The initiative anticipates the inaugural exhibition launching the pre-opening programme of The Mills Gallery in December 2015.