With art, theatre, dance and community initiatives happening across 8 different stairs in Central, Sheung Wan and Wan Chai, step up! is an event to celebrate the uniqueness and complexity of Hong Kong’s urban fabric.
step up! is a celebration of HK stairs through art, theatre, dance, design and community initiatives curated by Melissa Cate Christ, transverse studio
& a collaborative partner with Very Hong Kong
step up! is a curated exhibition of performances, events, art, and architecture installations which reflect on conflict, ownership, responsibility and cultural occupation in the context of public right of ways in Hong Kong. The installations are situated on an essential typology of pedestrian right of way on Hong Kong Island, the staircase.
The intent of step up! is to bring greater awareness about the importance and role of stairs in Hong Kong culture and daily life. As part of the everyday landscape of mountainous Hong Kong, outdoor stairways play a critical role in creating a permeable and accessible public realm. Embedded in hillsides, stacked on sidewalks or replacing streets and alleys altogether, Hong Kong’s ubiquitous and often emergent stairs (and the complex wayfinding they enable), are a reflection of a diverse city in continual flux. Serving as markets, ephemeral gathering places, secret short-cuts, wedding photo hot-spots, or quiet rest areas away from vehicular traffic, stairways are a vital typology of pedestrian and community infrastructure which define and embody the shared cultural experience of Hong Kong’s extreme topography. Stairs in many places in the city are threatened by careless maintenance practices, infrastructure proposals and/or urban development – step up! is a chance to celebrate these unique places and the often unacknowledged stair culture they engender in Hong Kong.
Although it is relatively straightforward for government departments or utilities to acquire an excavation permit to destroy and rebuild the public surface, granting permission to occupy the same spaces with art is a perplexing jurisdictional conundrum. Therefore the challenge of step up! is to design and install work which is light, temporary, site specific, and interactive. For the performances, the challenge is how to leave a trace, evidence of an event past, or a clue to a future one.
For all projects, the intent is to uncover the hidden potentials of stairs as occupiable public space, celebrate the uniqueness and complexity of HKs urban fabric and inject an element of spontaneity and surprise into our everyday routines.
We have chosen 8 stairs, with 11 installations and 6 performances/events by 13artists, which follow a path from Dominion Garden (the Wan Chai hub for the Very Hong Kong Festival) to Tai Ping Shan, the primary site of step up!. The goals of VHK (to celebrate and occupy HK public spaces), fit with the objectives of step up!, so we are working with them as a collaborative partner, with one installation on the stairs from Dominion Garden up to Sun Street which will also house maps to the rest of the locations & events.
step up! 2013 