The Floating Bamboos Hang Across the Southern Court

Responding to Hong Kong's devastating floods and their aftermath, Scotty So's installation examines the collision between ancestral tradition and unchecked modernity. The work references the artist's poet ancestor Su Shi, who asserted that one cannot live without a bamboo garden. Bamboo—symbolizing resilience, integrity, and adaptability in Chinese culture—becomes So's central metaphor. In the installation, So replaces the traditional bamboo garden with unrefined store-bought materials similar to those washed up in the flood, representing how modernity supersedes historical wisdom. Antique chairs pierced by cheap PVC bamboo pipes sit under street lights that summon the night, creating a meditation on time's passage and the tension between preservation and inevitable change.