2. Hong Kong Arts Festival

The city’s biggest performing arts festival will feature a total of 38 shows this year. They include local productions that were cancelled last year such as original musical Yat-sen, dance drama Love Streams and the stage adaptation of Hong Kong’s box-office hit Table for Six. There are also new productions this year, for example Loveless Romance by seasoned local playwright Cheung Tat-ming.

World-class acts coming to the city include pioneering American organist Cameron Carpenter, the first organist to be nominated for a Grammy, who mashes up classical music with modern elements; Britain’s Silent Opera, which will collaborate with local artists on Vixen, an interactive experience where audiences walk around Tai Kwun listening to opera on headphones; and the Hong Kong debut of the Bolshoi Ballet’s ex-principal dancer Natalia Osipova.

Until March 18. Various locations

Don't miss: 9 Hong Kong Arts Festival events you don’t want to miss in 2023

3. Tomihiro Kono and Sayaka Maruyama

Off the beaten path in Sham Shui Po, Japanese wig artist Tomihiro Kono and multidisciplinary artist Sayaka Maruyama are staging Fancy Creatures: The Art of the Wig at independent art space Current Plans, their first presentation in Hong Kong. Their whimsical, vibrant designs and fantastical installations translate human, animal and plant motifs into sculptural, wearable hair art. The duo create everything from scratch, starting with drawings of their unique designs, and moving onto hand-dyeing, weaving and finally fashioning the hair into surreal artwork. The couple have been commissioned by fashion houses like Balenciaga and Yueqi Qi, and by experimental musicians including Björk and Grimes. A few of the wigs on view at the exhibition are from Björk’s collection, commissioned for her latest album Fossora.

Current Plans, 2/F, 13 Wong Chuk Street, Sham Shui Po

4. Boloho

Guangzhou collective Boloho is set to turn Hanart TZ’s sprawling Kwai Hing gallery into a cha chaan teng, creating an environment which will feature paintings, texts, installations, hand-sewn works, and even a series of mini-sitcoms. This project, Bolohope (2022), is an iteration of its presentation at last year’s Documenta Fifteen in Kassel, Germany, where it turned a factory cafeteria into Hong Kongstyle café. Bolohope reflects the cultural aspirations of Guangzhou youth, interwoven with memories of Hong Kong media and urban culture of the 2000s. Boloho is also set to present two site-specific live performances at the gallery during art week. Founded in 2019 in an old residential neighbourhood in central Guangzhou, Boloho’s name is Cantonese for “jackfruit core”, reflecting the idea that that while the core of the fruit is often thrown away, it is actually a delicacy in its own right.

Hanart TZ, 2/F, Mai On Industrial Building, 19 Kung Yip Street, Kwai Chung

5. Wang Tuo

The Second Interrogation (2022) is artist Wang Tuo’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong. His films and performances are speculative narratives, often about cultural censorship, formed by combining Chinese modern history, fiction and mythology. The titular work is a film centred around the dramatic, fraught relationship between an artist and censor. By reversing the roles of their characters, Wang seeks to show how art can bring about social change and ask what the role of an artist is in an authoritarian state. The show will also feature drawings based on the film and a series of the artist’s latest paintings.

Blindspot, 15/F, Po Chai Industrial Building, 28 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Wong Chuk Hang

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