Firehall Arts Centre until May 29, 2021
Several 40-minute immersive exhibits every day. For schedule and info: firehallartscentre.ca
Tickets from $15 at firehallartscentre.ca or 604-689-0926. Tickets must be reserved; no tickets sold at the door.
Posted May 20, 2021
Everyone knew that vibrant, entrepreneurial Hong Kong would be radically altered when governance was transferred from Great Britain to the Peoples Republic of China on July 1, 1997 after 156 years of British rule. The impending and much-touted “One country, Two systems”, promising Hong Kong semi-autonomy, resulted in half a million people leaving the territory between 1987 and 1996. The future did not look trustworthy.
For a while after the 1997 handover, it appeared almost to be working. But gradually the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing began to assert itself and pro-democracy protests started breaking out in Hong Kong. Arrests, police brutality and disappearances began. Huge rallies – like the Umbrella Revolution from September to December 2014 – peaked at 100,000 demonstrators in the streets.
Created and directed by Sydney Risk Award winner Derek Chan and developed by rice & beans theatre, yellow objects takes the viewer on a visual journey through some of the 2019 events while – although this is less successfully illustrated – looking back through the eyes of character Sandra Wong in 2050. Wong’s story – the return of her grandmother’s ashes to Hong Kong – doesn’t really resonate and is quickly overtaken by the show’s visuals. yellow objects is an exhibit not a play and the visuals are often stunning: chaotic stacks of chairs, a flock of black, overturned umbrellas, thousands of bright sticky notes and video tapes of real events.
Adhering to all the Covid 19 protocols, audiences are limited to 10; masks must be worn both inside the Firehall and outside in the courtyard where the show concludes. There is graphic video footage from the police attack on subway passengers on August 31, 2019 – known as the Prince Edward Station Incident – and an aural, fictionalized sodomizing of a protester. “yellow object” refers to the depersonalization by police of the protesters; it makes it easier to brutalize them if they are simply objects.
yellow objects doesn’t always work: Wong’s story peters out, “Uncle Chen’s” reminiscences aren’t particularly engaging and some scenes are too long. I missed the relevance of the lengthy shadow-puppets’ battle to the death until reading another reviewer’s critique. But yellow objects is undoubtedly an innovative approach to story-telling and it’s an important story to tell.
Almost as disturbing as the exhibit is this note in the press release: “Although this exhibition is taking place and was created in Canada, there are at least a dozen artists living in our country who are self-censoring their work and themselves because of what is going on in China. For this reason, the artists in this project have chosen to use pseudonyms or remain anonymous.”
Shocking.