Two-channel video installation
Dimension variable
video:
part one: (*based on request), 7min48s
part two: (*based on request), 9min54s
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In Dance Before Departure, Tang Kwok-hin presents a poignant two-channel video installation that intertwines personal memory, separation, and socio-political reflection. Created during a three-month artist residency in New York while the unstable situations unfolded in Hong Kong, the work captures the emotional tension of simultaneous yet distant realities — one rooted in local reailty at home, the other in artistic displacement abroad.
The piece features footage from both Hong Kong and New York, accompanied by unsent letters written to a cousin. Through dance, Tang attempts to reclaim the carefree joy of childhood, specifically revisiting a long-buried regret connected to a childhood friendship. The act of dancing becomes a ritual of reclamation — a fleeting moment of expression in the face of impending departure, loss, and unresolved emotions.
The title Dance Before Departure evokes a bittersweet urgency: dancing as both celebration and mourning, performed in anticipation of separation. It touches on themes of estrangement, the passage of time, generational divides, and the helplessness of confronting urban life and social impasses. Memory here is portrayed as inherently fragmented and tinged with loss — emotions long shelved due to avoidance, fear, or forgetting are brought to the surface.
By weaving personal narratives with broader societal reflections, the installation highlights how individual experiences of distance and regret can mirror larger collective struggles, such as Hong Kong’s deadlock of reality. Dance Before Departure exemplifies Tang Kwok-hin’s sensitive practice of using autobiographical elements and everyday gestures to explore the intersections of private emotion, memory, and public turbulence.
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