For six weeks beginning in October 2021, the Prison Yard at Hong Kong’s heritage and arts complex Tai Kwun was busier than usual. Among visitors indulging in a cool courtyard respite were the living components of Tino Sehgal’s human sculpture, These Associations (2012). Indiscernible from the common stranger at a glance, two dozen or so “interpreters”—individuals trained by Sehgal and his team specifically to activate his work—would sing, dance, and play among unsuspecting visitors continuously throughout the day. Interpolated between collective activities of walking, running, shuffling, dancing, and vocal harmonizing were moments of intimacy where interpreters would individually approach a visitor to share a personal story, which sometimes led to a deeper conversation, or even an embrace, and was often punctuated by an abrupt exit.
Concurrently, upstairs on the third floor of Tai Kwun Contemporary, in a nearly pitch-black gallery space, a separate group of 12 interpreters was activating another Sehgal (2012), through their movements and voices. At times their rhythmic breaths evolved into a mass liturgical acapella and in others they unfolded individually, as they told stories unearthed from personal memories and translated them into solo dances. Visitors entered with trepidation, lining the walls until their eyes adjusted to discern the anonymous dancers’ contours, before exploring the space out of curiosity, absorbing the reverberating energy that enveloped the room.
