TRES: Ubiquitous Trash

Puerta Roja supports Mexican art collective TRES, winners of the WMA Commission and their exhibition “Ubiquitous Trash – Hong Kong Edition“. After their exhibition and book launch at Connecting Spaces, the exhibition comes to Puerta Roja until September 10th.

The WMA 2015 Commission invited entries for proposals from artists and photographers from both Hong Kong and the international community, to create new photo-based work in Hong Kong, focusing on the theme of WASTE. TRES proposal was handpicked from over 70 submissions from around the globe by three-member selection panel: Fung Ho Yin, Assistant Professor, School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Dr. Charles Merewether, Visiting Professor, School of Art, Design and Media, Nanyang Technological University Singapore and member of Commissioning Panel for Venice Biennale Singapore Pavilion 2015; and Dr. Anthony Ng trustee of the WYNG Foundation.

Ubiquitous Trash is a research project into the social life of the strange abandoned objects we call trash. Parting from incessant walks and obsessive scavenging across the city of Hong Kong, TRES explores the signs and marks imprinted on trash collected from public spaces and officia l waste sites. The research gave rise to the book Ubiquitous Trash, Hong Kong Edition, where the intertwining of public space and trash became a multiplicity of unfolding relationships and decoding of the sociopolitical from an artistic perspective. The series is designed to develop and activate an archive of global trash taxonomy.

This exhibition furthers the book research with a selection of images and objects with varying intensity. TRES explores the tension between the macro and the micro details that emerge from the translation of trash into photographic images or drawings. In each refuse object a gesture remains, allowing us to gain insight into human culture. TRES believes trash helps enhance our understanding of the contemporary society because “its informational character, its capacity to store material, economic and symbolic information can be used to elaborate individual or collective portraits of our society”.

Adriana Alvarez-Nichol, founder of Puerta Roja states: “We are delighted for the gallery to support the WYNG Masters Commsion (WMA) as a
non-profit photography award to spark awareness of socially relevant issues in Hong Kong and are thrilled that the winners from Mexico have captured in their research a unique perspective into Hong Kong. We are certain people will be surprised and intrigued by the exhibition and the book”

The book Ubiquitous Trash – Hong Kong Edition in Chinese and English will be presented at the exhibition and can be acquired in Puerta Roja. TRES employs the intimate view that photography provides, as well as collected objects, drawings, and site-specific research methods. The book includes essays of internationally respected academics Jérôme Monnet, Charles Merewether, and Héctor Castillo Berthier extend the exploration of trash into other disciplinary views.