Challenging hierarchies

The idea behind the Nice to Meet You Kapok exhibition at The Mills was to make visitors see that there was more to a kapok tree than the airborne fibers from its overripe fruits. Its flowers are a potential source of natural fabric dye, pillow stuffing, and a key ingredient of five-flower tea (wuhuacha). Also featured in the exhibition, held from March to May, was an illustrated map showing the kapok trees in and around Tsuen Wan, where The Mills is located. Other attractions included a window mural by Lam King-ting and wooden pillars inscribed with lines from local writer Chan Wai's short story on the kapok flower.

"For us, art was just a means of expressing nature," says Vicki Lui, manager of The Mills' Cultural and Community Engagement Department. "Evident from COVID-19, Mother Nature is ill and our lifestyles are to blame. Through these programs, we hope to connect with the community with knowledge the public can replicate at home or turn into a cool story to share with friends. This is the only way we can promote sustainability."

Zheng Bo's exhibition Life is hard. Why do we make it so easy? held in Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden earlier this year, was an attempt to look at the world from a non-anthropocentric way. The artist used malleable bamboo reeds to create the framework for an installation featuring the 10 words of the show title. Seeds of fern and 12 species of local orchids were sewn onto the frames. By the time the exhibition commenced, the words had come alive with blooming flowers.