Border X'Change: Sha Tau Kok

General Introduction

Border is commonly defined as a barrier or a dividing line between two entities. In sociopolitical relationships, border could be the cause for hostile disputes between sovereign nations, from Thailand and Cambodia to Israel and its Arab neighbors and countless other examples. It could also be the perverse but sometimes opportunistic interdependence between United States and Mexico, where flows of legitimate and illegitimate trade and commerce across the porous border have reshaped their threshold cities, such that they are neither distinctively American nor Mexican, but instead contains the cultural and social characteristics of the other. Depending on the contexts, border can be a barrier, a welcoming entrance or “spaces of debate and productive ambiguity”1.

The One Country Two System policy instated in Hong Kong during the 1997 hand-over, created a unique border condition, which over time became more phenomenal and figurative than literal. This ambiguous presence of a boundary with Shenzhen provides a context to examine the history and current state of highly interwoven relationships, and by extension, relationships beyond the context of Hong Kong.

Border X’Change studio aims to explore the latent potentials of Border in both literal and phenomenal terms, and aim to transform from a threshold that demarcates into an In-between space of hosted events and influences. We will study a broad range of issues as subjects of inquiry to provide clues for spatial and programmatic interventions.