By Melanie Yeung

As the Year 13 graduation draws near, the annual RCHK Diploma Program Visual Arts exhibition inches closer and closer to its completion and eventual presentation to the student body. The exhibition is renowned for its extravagant and thought-provoking pieces and is a wonderful site of inspiration for aspiring visual art Diploma students. Primary and secondary students alike look forward to the presented pieces every year.

It was disheartening, however, when the whole of Hong Kong fell victim to another wave of COVID-19, leaving schools with no choice but to shut down and employ online learning methods once again. The Visual Arts department also faced a dilemma, as the in-person exhibition that typically took place over the month of March would not be able to proceed due to strict restrictions in response to the Omicron variant. The department ultimately decided to shift the exhibition to online methods of presentation.

Solenne Palmer, a Year 13 Visual Arts student remarked: “I think that it’s a more convenient method for people to view the exhibition whenever they want. However, I do wish we did a physical exhibition because I felt like I didn’t get a proper experience of having an exhibition; it didn’t feel like a big deal anymore or something special.”

Palmer also noted that “the offline method reduced image quality and people did not curate the pieces in their virtual exhibition to scale. Some people enormously scaled up artworks that are small in real life, which felt unfair and inauthentic as well.”

To find out more about the executive decision to proceed with the online exhibition, we talked to Stacey Leung, who teaches Year 13 Visual Arts Diploma students.

What sort of discussion was had to determine the switch to an online exhibition method?

When we were looking at the current Covid situation, we knew it would be a difficult situation to try and arrange for all 25 students to come into the PAC at the same time to arrange their artworks in a cohesive exhibition. As well, we also needed to consider the amount of staff that would have been required to set up the walls in the PAC. These considerations, alongside the fact that we would most likely not be able to have anyone come and visit the exhibition, made us have to rethink how to go about organising the exhibition. 

There were then discussions with other ESF schools to get a sense of what their schools were doing, and then through those conversations, we realised we had a platform that was perfect for our situation, which was ArtSteps. 

ArtSteps allowed for all students to have autonomy in their exhibition spaces, which is a large part of the IB assessment. So we thought this would be the best solution to our concerns. 

What is your personal opinion of the online exhibition method? 

All things considered, I think ArtSteps was a great exhibition method. As I mentioned, it gave students complete autonomy in their exhibition spaces. They got more creative freedom than they would have if we held the exhibition in person. Of course, this is not going to be something we choose to do instead of the physical exhibition, if given the choice. There is nothing that replaces the feeling of seeing an artwork in person, or walking through the PAC seeing all of the variety of student artworks side by side, but I think our virtual opening and creation of the website allowed "visitors" to get a sense of the entire cohort. Overall, I feel positive about the online exhibition method.  

What kind of impact do you think this has on the presented artworks? What kind of limitations do you think it presents?

One positive aspect that this method has on the presentation of the artworks was the ability to gain information on the artworks immediately, from clicking on the image in ArtSteps. This allowed the audience to gain insight into the artwork's meaning and the artist's intention. 

However, of course, the limitation is that nothing can replicate seeing an artwork in person. Being able to engage with a singular artwork, or stand back and take in all of the artworks in person is an experience that is so individual and personal. Unfortunately, that doesn't really come across digitally. 

Secondly, one of the things that I think is very specific to RCHK, is that every year we tend to have a super diverse range of artwork styles and themes; that is most effectively seen when all of the artworks are set up in the PAC for the audience to walk through and see. We tried our best to facilitate that by creating the website to allow easy access to each student's individual exhibitions, but of course, it is not the same as being all in the same space. 

Charis Pao, a Year 12 Visual Arts Diploma student, agreed with Leung’s sentiment: “Although it was still great to see everyone’s work displayed during online school, I think offline exhibitions are more effective. You can see artworks up close and experience them much better, which isn’t an interaction you’d necessarily have online. I also think there’s something gratifying about an offline exhibition, a tangible outcome and display of students’ hard work over the course of the two years.”

“For certain types of artworks that are digital, for example, animations, videos, photography, an online exhibition would work seamlessly,” Pao continues. “Whereas with larger-scale works or sculptures, I think that they lose that sense of impact because it’s presented and viewed from a screen instead.”

We must commend the Visual Arts Department at RCHK for adapting seamlessly to the unpredictable situation in Hong Kong, as well as their efforts in ensuring that the Year 13 Diploma students were still able to present their work to the student body. This applies to the Year 13 students themselves as well, for their resilience and hard work in curating and creating their beautiful art pieces over the course of two school years.

Needless to say, while the online methods of the exhibition are innovative and interesting, many students alike hope that in-person exhibitions will become possible once the Omicron outspread has calmed down, as the experience of an offline exhibition cannot be replaced.

If you are interested in viewing the exhibition for yourself, visit http://ibdpva2022.rchk.edu.hk/!