19-2-2014 The Works

For the past 15 years, the St. James's Settlement has been encouraging its mentally challenged members to practice ceramics at the Pottery Workshop as part of their rehabilitation. Not only do they learn the craft through workshops and training, their works are also exhibited and sold, both in Hong Kong and overseas. At the Pottery Workshop's Tai Ping Shan Street gallery until 4th March is an exhibition that includes signature smiling clay figures and musical instruments produced by 23 members of the St. James' ceramics workshop. Ceramic artist Caroline Cheng is the founder of the Pottery Workshop, and she also has works on display alongside those of the St. James Settlement artists.
LA-based artist Jennifer Steinkamp is currently holding her first solo exhibition in Hong Kong at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery. She creates digitally rendered animations that capture the movements of the natural world, and that are then, often, projected into architectural surroundings. It's a blending of the latest technology and the natural.
Artists all over the world have painted miniatures. They were even particularly popular in Britain in the Elizabethan era. But in Asia the art form reached new heights during the reign of the Mughal Emperors, who ruled present day Pakistan and India between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. In today's show we talk to two artists from Pakistan, Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid, who -- in a new exhibition at the Hong Kong Arts Centre- show how they give their own modern twist to the ancient art of miniature painting.
The night before our show, the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts celebrated "Cool Britannia" with a recital of British Music for Trumpet and Piano performed by Christopher Moyse and Jacqueline Leung. The concert also featured trumpet students from the academy. The combination of trumpet and piano isn't one you may have heard before, but today Christopher and Jacqueline are in our studio to talk to Ben Pelletier.