M+ International: The Hidden Pulse

M+, at the West Kowloon Cultural District, launches its new global partnership initiative M+ International with the project The Hidden Pulse, taking place in Sydney between May 29 and June 2. The five-day programme is part of Vivid LIVE 2019, the annual centrepiece of the Sydney Opera House’s year-round contemporary music programme, and is curated by Ulanda Blair, Curator, Moving Image, M+, and Sarah Rees, Curator, Contemporary Art, Sydney Opera House. Vivid LIVE at the Sydney Opera House is part of Vivid Sydney, the largest festival of light, music, and ideas in the Southern Hemisphere.

As Hong Kong’s new museum of visual culture, M+ is dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting design and architecture, moving image, visual art, and Hong Kong visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. The museum is launching M+ International to create partnerships and collaborations for these activities, and to expand connections with regions beyond Hong Kong. The initiative aims to generate a broader international resonance for M+, whose Herzog & de Meuron–designed building is slated for completion in 2020.

The Hidden Pulse is the first-ever moving image programme in Vivid LIVE’s 11-year history. The programme comprises artists’ videos, films, and talks that use contemporary music and performance as their stimuli, and that consider the political, social, and cultural power of music and performance histories.

Through moving image works, The Hidden Pulse explores the capacity of music and performance to build community, resist authority, shape identity, transform culture, excavate history, and ultimately reclaim cultural space. The programme showcases work by Arthur Jafa (American, born 1960), who was awarded the Golden Lion for best artist at the Venice Biennale in 2019; Wu Tsang (American, born 1982); and Cheng Ran (Chinese, born 1981) and Shao Yanpeng (Chinese, born 1981), all of whom will give talks alongside their screenings. Major presentations of work by Charles Atlas (American, born 1949) and Stan Douglas (Canadian, born 1960) accompany these live events, and The Hidden Pulse also presents four free thematic screening programmes, featuring work by Oliver Beer (British, born 1985), Meriem Bennani (Moroccan, born 1988), Jay Chung and Q Takeki Maeda (American, born 1976; Japanese, born 1977), Martin Creed (British, born 1968), Dara Friedman (German, born 1968), Camille Henrot (French, born 1978), Amrita Hepi (Bundjulung (Australia) and Ngapuhi (New Zealand), born 1990), Christian Jankowski (German, born 1968), Rashid Johnson (American, born 1977), Mark Leckey (British, born 1964), Angelica Mesiti (Australian, born 1976), Vincent Moon (French, born 1979), Jenn Nkiru (British, born 1987), Hetain Patel (British, born 1980), The Propeller Group (established Vietnam, 2006), Justin Shoulder and Bhenji Ra (Australian, born 1985; Australian, born 1990), Tao Hui (Chinese, born 1987), YOUNG-HAE CHANG HEAVY INDUSTRIES (established South Korea, 1999), Samson Young (Hong Kong, born 1979), Katarina Zdjelar (Serbian, born 1979), and Zhou Tao (Chinese, born 1976). Panel discussions involving local and international artists and curators unpack the themes of The Hidden Pulse. The programme addresses intersections between moving image, music, and performance, allowing M+ to establish new relationships, produce new research, and tell new stories for visual culture in Hong Kong, Asia, and beyond.

About M+
M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the 20th and 21st centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, we are building one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. Our aim is to create a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s 21st century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District
The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing 23 hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.

About the Sydney Opera House
The Opera House is a masterpiece that belongs to all Australians. It is the nation’s premier tourism destination, a world-class performing arts centre and celebrated community meeting place. Each year, the Opera House welcomes 10.9 million visitors to the site, including more than 2.1 million performance and tours patrons. A global beacon for creativity, it is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and Deloitte has estimated its total social asset value to Australia at AUD 6.2 billion. Since embarking on a decade of renewal at its 40th anniversary, the Opera House is now midway through a programme of major upgrades to ensure this 20th-century icon continues to inspire 21st-century artists, audiences, and visitors.