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‘Miasma, Plants, Export Paintings’: Screening and Artist Talk

  • Time
    21 June 2025, 15.30–17.00
  • Location
    4F, A4 Art Museum
  • Artist
    LU Pan and WANG Bo

Introduction

Following the Opium War, a sense of anxiety and dread regarding the humid, tropical climate of South China permeated the British troops stationed in Hong Kong. The ‘miasma theory’, prevalent in the 19th century, linked epidemics to air quality, the environment, and race—anxieties that indirectly shaped the class stratification and spatial morphology of Hong Kong which persist to this day.
During this period, the British colonial government began focusing on the afforestation of Hong Kong Island. The establishment of the Hong Kong Botanical Gardens served a dual purpose: collecting and categorising colonial botanical and natural knowledge for the British Empire’s naturalist disciplines. The demand for botanical archives among British naturalists, in turn, fuelled the popularity of ‘export paintings’ in Europe.
This work focuses on tracing the impact of early colonialism and imperial expansion on the spatial and natural forms of Guangdong and Hong Kong. It also seeks to explore the resonances and divergences between historical modes of East-West cultural and commercial exchange and those of the contemporary era.

  • Artist Profile

    LU Pan
    LU Pan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese History and Culture at Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests encompass visual culture and art, urban culture, media theory, space, cinema, cultural memory, and war monuments in modern and contemporary Greater China. Her work further extends to inter-Asia cultural studies, East Asian colonialism, and island studies.

    WANG Bo
    WANG Bo is an artist, filmmaker, and researcher currently based in Amsterdam.
    Collaborations
    Pan Lu and Wang Bo have collaborated on various artistic projects since 2012, delving into themes such as space, imagery, environment, colonialism, and the Cold War, with a focus on the intricate history and current state of East Asia.
    Their collaborative works include multi-media installations such as:
    ‘Postcards from the Future’ (2014)
    ‘Ode to Infrastructure’ (2016)
    ‘The Adventures of Cocoa on a Southern Island’ (2024)
    They have also co-directed several films:
    ‘Traces of an Invisible City: Three Notes on Hong Kong’ (2016)
    ‘Miasma, Plants, Export Paintings’ (2017)
    ‘Many Undulating Things’ (2019)

Gallery