Yarli Allison PRISON? GARDEN! AR Installation, 2021, Tai Kwun
We worked with Yarli Allison to create an AR Instagram filter, PRISON? GARDEN! for her installation on display at 55 Squared at Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts. After scanning a QR code in the outdoor installation in the Parade Ground, audiences will be able to open the filter using Instagram or Facebook to view a 3D scene created by the artist on display from 18 May-31 Aug 2021.
The work brings together floral characters and architectural elements at Tai Kwun, both physically and digitally; with her fantastic metaphors of solidarity and uprootedness, Allison fills the work with complex emotions of anticipation, excitement, grief, and anxiety. Through the AR filter, the artist welcomes visitors into her fantastic garden of pixels; they get to walk through flapping prison gates and under arched prison windows, and approach uprooted plants that apparently appear cheerful and yet are shedding blood and tears. As the artist states, “As viewers step into the ‘pool of tears’, they step into a sense of ‘compassion’, with the Latin root meaning ‘to-suffer-with’: as my vulnerability is exposed, I extend my emotional boundaries to you.” Curated by Louiza Ho and Jill Angel Chun.
