Our Living Library (2022)

Oi! is dedicated to experimental art, younger artists, and community co-creation. Situated in a dense city-centre neighbourhood, the Oil Street Art Space comprises the graceful former Royal Yacht Club (Grade II historic building) in front of a wide-open natural field. Perhaps the one and only in Hong Kong, it has gradually become an amalgam of cultural platform and public space, a fusion of creative energy and community actions, and an intercourse between artists and seculars.

In 2022, Oi! will double its size. There will be more free space, and Oi! Glassie—a humbly new building for public enjoyment. An integral part of the official opening programme, OUR LIVING LIBRARY, is scheduled to run from May to November this year. The atypical library will present 12 artists and art groups, and 108 art books, each contributed by a friend of Oi!

OUR LIVING LIBRARY

Library is a collective of differences- a place of co-existence, reciprocity, and conservation.

Regrettably, nowadays, libraries have become obsolete in our public life, a dying typology in urge to be redefined. In the digital age, how may knowledge be codified and learnt in a library? How does art library manifest various experiential forms, such as sound, objects, moving images, data and augmentation? How can a community art library differentiate itself from a repository or an archive (not a collection of protected catalogues and books, but a collection of open, generative processes)? How might a library conduct cultural sharing and advocate sharing culture? How can a library grow and evolve with the wider community, absorbing the abundant memory and document of art that exists in the city and beyond?

OUR LIVING LIBRARY is the third and final episode of our Oil Trilogy, a site- and time-specific placemaking exercise for the venue extension. Following SOCIAL GASTRONOMY (2015-2018) and addOi! ART HACKATHON (2020-2021), the trilogical programme essentially explores food, toys and finally books as means to engage. Open to question here are the representation and reproduction, perception and participation, method and methodology, learning and recording of art community, and community art.


Curatorial Partner: Alvin Yip, Kay Chan
Presented by Oi!