Ellen Pau

Ellen Pau is an artist, curator and researcher based in Hong Kong. She is also co-founder of Videotage and founding artistic director of the Microwave International New Media Arts Festival.[1] The artist's first retrospective exhibition in Hong Kong was organized by Para Site in 2018.[2] The exhibition included major video installations ranging from the 1980s to the present.[3]

Ellen Pau
Born1961 (age 59–60)
Hong Kong
NationalityHong Kong
Notable work
Recycling Cinema
Spouse(s)Mandy Wong
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese鮑藹倫
Simplified Chinese鲍蔼伦
Hanyu PinyinBào Ăilún
Yale RomanizationBaau1 Oi2 Leun4
Jyutpingbaau1 oi2 leon4
In this Chinese name, the family name is Pau.

Early life

Pau graduated from Diagnostic Radiography in 1985 at Hong Kong Polytechnic University and has worked as a professional radiographer and mammographer in Queen Mary Hospital.[4][5] During her undergraduate study, she worked as a stage actor, music editor, and concert organizer while at Polytechnic.[6][7] She also joined experimental theatre company Zuni Icosahedron where she became more familiar with contemporary art.[7] A mostly self-taught artist, she gained a master's degree in Visual Culture at Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2008.

Pau's interest in art and technology perhaps could be traced back to her visit to the Expo '70 when she was eight-year-old. The Expo '70 has been massively promoted in Asia, including Hong Kong. With her family, Pau had spent a few days at the Expo and went through most of the pavilions. One of them with people doing weird things and with a lot of screens leaves a great impression on her. She later found out that what she saw was the Pepsi-Cola Pavilion Project (1968-1972) by renowned American experimental group, Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.).

Work

Inspired by 1960s filmmakers and artists such as Jean-Luc Godard and Martha Rosler,[8] Pau created her first super-8 film Glove in 1984.[5] In the early 1990s, Pau began to create video installations, such as Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore in collaboration with Chan Pik Yu and Jesse Dai[9] and Recycling Cinema (1998), a video that captures blurred images of moving vehicles on a Hong Kong highway, was exhibited at the Hong Kong Pavilion in the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001,[10] and in Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World at the Guggenheim Museum (2017).[11]

Pau is active as a curator and organizer in the art world. A vocal supporter of the independent arts scene, she has advocated for increasing funding and exhibition opportunities for artists in non-traditional.[12] In 1986, together with Wong Chi-fai, May Fung, and Comyn Mo, she founded Videotage, Hong Kong's oldest video and media art space.[5] In 1996, she founded Microwave International New Media Arts Festival, an annual event that includes exhibitions, conferences, seminars, school tours and workshops.[7] Pau has also independently curated exhibitions including Digit@logue (2008) at the Hong Kong Museum of Art.[13][14] From 2013 to 2019, Pau was appointed by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) as a representative of the arts sector in Film Arts.[15] Later in 2014, she was further appointed to the interim acquisition committee of M+[16] in West Kowloon Cultural District to advise on collection development.[6]

Works by Pau can be found in these collections: VMAC, Videotage and Video Bureau.

Videography
Title Year Length Format Notes
Glove 1984 Super-8 film
Disenchantment of the Statue 1987 10:00 Betamax
Fire Sermon 1988 3:12 Video 8
Garden at Fringe 1988 1:30 Video 8
She Moves 1988 Video 8
Drained 1988 3:00 Video8 (NTSC)
TV Game of the Year 1989 5:00 VHS
Live in the Time of Cholera 1989 4:16 Video 8
Drained II 1989 5:40 V8 Edited with Betamax
Blue 1989 8:00 V8 Edited with Betamax
Diversion 1990 5:30 VHS
Here's Looking At You,Kid! 1990 9:23 In collaboration with Wong Chi-fai and Yau Ching.
Video is a Hole 1990 5:00 Video 8
Alice doesn’t live here anymore 1990 Video Installation
Song of the Goddess 1992 6:50 Hi-8
Video Vogue 1992 Video Installation
Bik Lai Chu 1993 Video Installation
Drained III 1995 Video Installation
Drained IV 1996 Video Installation
I can only tell it to strangers 1996 Video Installation
The Great Movement 1996 Video Installation & Performation The video work of this video-installation being re-made in 2016
Movement#1/10 1996 5:00 Hi-8 Edited with SVHS
Video Circle: Recycling Opera 1996 Video Installation Video Circle is an installation with 32 televisions, conceived by Danny Yung.
The Great Movement: Red Stock 1997 Video Installation
Expiration 1997-2000 5:09 DV
Sweetness 1998 Video Installation
Recycling Cinema 1999 12:00 DV
Recycling Cinema 2000 8:00 DV + Video Installation
For Some Reasons 2003 5:12 DV
Not Yet 2004 10:00 Video Installation
Fanfare for the Common Man 2010 4:02 DV
For Some Blues 2015 2:30 DV

Publications
  1. Elaine W. NG(伍穎瑜): dye-a-di-a-logue with Ellen Pau. Monographs in Contemporary Art Books. 2004. ISBN 0975335405.
  2. SING Song-yong(孫松榮), 'Delayed Plasticity: A Preliminary Investigation of the Political Criticism of Sinophone Single-Channel Video Art in the 1980s,' Journal of Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 34 (Nov 2017), 65–90. (in Chinese)
  3. Linda Lai (2015), 'Video Art in Hong Kong: Organologic Sketches for a Dispersive History', in Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook 2014, Hong Kong: Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 15–54.
  4. Alice Jim, ‘Screen Structures: Overview of Media Art Development in Hong Kong.’ Hong Kong Visual Arts Yearbook 2003 (1), Hong Kong: Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004, 150–58.
  5. Ellen Pau, "Development of Hong Kong Video Art." VTEXT, June 1997, p. 54 -57.

References
  1. Kong, Travis (2012). "Ellen Pau". In Gerstner, David (ed.). Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture. Routledge. p. 451. ISBN 978-1136761812.
  2. "Ellen Pau: What about Home Affairs? — A Retrospective". Para Site. Retrieved 2020-03-07.
  3. Lee, Christie (2019-01-01). "In Hong Kong, What is Home? Ellen Pau Tackles the Question In Her 30-Year Retrospective". Zolima City Magazine. Retrieved 2020-03-07.
  4. Sullivan, Michael. Modern Chinese artists: a biographical dictionary. Univ of California Press, 2006.
  5. "Ellen Pau's Profile at Videotage". Videotage. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  6. Chow, Vivienne. "'We can't afford another generation too lazy to think', says arts adviser". South China Morning Post.
  7. Whittle, Keith. "CRUMB Interviews: Videotage Hong Kong: An interview with Ellen Pau". CRUMB - Curatorial Resource for Upstart Media Bliss. Archived from the original on 2014-01-11. Retrieved 2014-10-19.
  8. NG, Elaine W. NG, Elaine W. (ed.). dye-a-di-a-logue with Ellen Pau. Monographs in Contemporary Art Books. pp. 6–8. ISBN 0975335405.
  9. "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1990)". Zuni Icosahedron. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  10. Magic at Street Level: China-Hong Kong Exhibition at The Venice Biennial. Hong Kong: Hong Kong Museum of Art. 2001. pp. 42–43.
  11. Borgonjon, David (2017-12-17). "Theater of the World: Art and China after 1989 | Ocula". Ocula. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  12. Tse-Shang, Tang, Denise (2011). Conditional spaces : Hong Kong lesbian desires and everyday life. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. p. 125. ISBN 978-9888083015. OCLC 770316327.
  13. "Digit@logue". South China Morning Post. 2008-05-27. Retrieved 2018-03-07.
  14. "Hong Kong Art: Open Dialogue: Exhibition Series I - Digit@logue". Asia Art Archive. Retrieved 2014-10-19.
  15. "Appointments to Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Hong Kong Government Press Release". GovHK. 2013-12-27. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  16. "Appointment of Committee and Subcommittee Members under The Board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority, Press Release of West Kowloon Cultural District Authority". West Kowloon Cultural District. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
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