Story of Simon Birch
People often ask about my inspirations and how I developed @the14thfactory. This is my story...
11
Becoming more established meant I had money from regular painting sales and could develop experimental side projects; installation, video, immersive experience, and also meet other artists, learn from them, and find ways to work together. Not just contemporary artists but filmmakers, photographers, architects, actors, composers, and many creatives.
I was lucky to meet many creatives far in advance of me that were happy to collaborate. HK heroes like Stanley Wong, Wing Shya, the King of Kowloon (RIP), even my buddy actor Daniel Wu and singer Josie Ho. Almond Chu, Alan Chan, Craig Au Yueng, Sara Tse, Kacey Wong, Jaffa Lam, William Furniss, Movana Chen, Phunk Studio, Frog king, Brian 852 Siswojo, LMF....
It's a long list of brilliant people who were happy to hang, teach, create and collaborate with a relatively unknown, just getting started, wannabe artist/curator/project manager.
Here are the images from a couple of such projects;
-Azhanti High Lightning, an immersive installation of 7 parts in Singapore including a dramatic video installation shot non-stop over 24 hours and compressed into 7 minutes. Timed almost perfectly, 7 events happened live during that shoot, a fight, a horse gallops past, a car crashes, a pig is slaughtered, etc. All thanks to Wing Shya for this.
- Outside Context Problem, an 8 artist group show including Li Wei, Cang Xin and Huang Rui, and Akira illustrator Tatsuyuki Tanaka.
- Looking For Antonio Mak, a group show at HKMOA in response to one of HK's most brilliant artists who sadly passed away far too young, for which I filmed a live tiger in gorgeous slow motion, an immersive multi-screen installation that went on to show at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art. I had tried to show a real live tiger but was not allowed, I have a hundred-page document from the government explaining why you can't have a tiger in an art museum. I gave away 300 paper tigers made from HK$100 bills.
All non-profit, so always left broke after (people assume there is a sponsor but generally it's me that funds these projects) and great adventures!
