藝評

Review

by John Batten

Sara Tse: Seed to Textile 2025 – Woven Campus

Over the last five years, Hong Kong artist Sara Tse has assiduously documented the school that she and her sisters attended when young. Opened in 1952, Kwai Chung Public School was a primary school for children living in nearby rural villages, some still inhabited today. It was reached by a narrow pathway, sited atop a small hill, surrounded by trees on Castle Peak Road in Kwai Hing. Hong Kong’s rural schools from this period were all similarly designed by government public works architects: large rendered brick single-storey pitched roofed classrooms arranged around a U-shaped open space doubling as both playground and outdoor assembly area. Tse’s school also had a covered open-air concrete podium at one end of the playground, used by teachers at school assemblies.

These schools were the pride of a local community and were supported financially and materially by parents and local donors. Like many schools, Kwai Chung Public School honoured its beneficiaries with acknowledgement plaques and applied photo-portraits on ceramic tiles – these were prominently placed on the school’s podium. Although free compulsory primary school education in Hong Kong was not introduced until 1971, this small school was fully attended due to the dramatic influx of refugees from the mainland after China’s civil war ended in 1949 and the increase of squatter housing throughout the district.

The post-war economic boom brought dramatic changes to Kwai Chung. The area saw urban development and increased work opportunities. Coastal village communities were removed inland as Hong Kong port facilities (now container terminals) expanded. Mass residential public housing was built, slowly replacing Kwai Chung’s precarious hillside squatter huts. Over time, the school was surrounded by industrial buildings. Alongside these developments, newer and larger schools opened and better public transport allowed children to commute to schools in other areas, particularly to nearby Tsuen Wan. The small Kwai Chung Public School eventually closed and was unoccupied for many years. It has now been demolished, the surrounding vegetation cleared and hill flattened; the site will soon be redeveloped.

Tse knew of the school’s imminent demolition and she requested permission to visit. Initially, she documented the physical school, its architecture, surrounding trees and her favourite places while a student. She made rubbings of the intact plaques, walls and floors. She photographed and recorded the surrounding sounds of the school. Initially this was a personal art/research project, she then invited friends and the school’s alumni to visit. She arranged tours of the school. She involved artists and students of other schools. The heritage and the school’s stories were recalled, recorded and – for those that were not alumni - reimagined. Generations of students, many now adults, contributed to Tse’s art project.

Tse’s investigations and documentation about her school and her artistic interpretations have not as yet been fully realised – hopefully this will be a future, larger exhibition. However, the Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT) in nearby Tsuen Wan tapped Tse’s project to be supported under their yearly Seed to Textile project. This was a good collaboration. The essence of Tse’s own research and alumni collaborations were preserved, and CHAT’s aims were met by introducing a textile element to her project, as explained: “(Since 2019, Seed to Textile is)…CHAT’s flagship community programme…acquainting artists and the public with the connections between nature, textiles and art, offering hands-on experiences ranging from farming to gallery practice.”  

Throughout 2025, Tse led a group of ‘Seeders’ – her school’s alumni, public volunteers and students from Pak Heung Central Primary School – to cultivate common Hong Kong plant species on the rooftop garden of The Mills (CHAT’s adjacent former textile-manufacturing factory building). Led by Tse, the Seeders produced natural dyes and fibres harvested from their plants. In collaborative workshops, objects related to Kwai Chung Public School were made: textiles were dyed; ceramics pots in the shape of candy-shop glass jars were cast and transferred images and text attached to their exterior; and, cyanotype photographs were printed. Then, the dyed textiles and cyanotype photographs were skilfully woven in, around and between small tree branches and twigs. These were then placed inside the ceramic pots, ready to be displayed.  

Sections of this collaboration was first seen in a small exhibit in August 2025 as an ‘Open Studio’ setting in CHAT’s gallery spaces. Four months later, a more complete and impressive showing of the collaborations was shown in a too-brief - but powerful - three-day presentation in CHAT’s main hall, titled Seed to Textile 2025 – Woven Campus.

The Woven Campus installation was set-up atop borrowed school desks. Literally underpinning the display were long sheets of paper on which the evocative floor of Tse’s school had been rubbed red, replicating the school’s tiled floors. Ceramics have always been an integral component of Tse’s artwork; her elaborate slipped porcelain installations have been internationally exhibited. In this display, the cast ceramic pots are spread across the paper floor. Inside each pot, a small tree branch emerges with an intricate weaving of hand-dyed textiles with an embedded cyanotype photograph. Each pot is like a small diorama, capturing an aspect of the school and its recent educational and playground past. The overt hand-made, down-to-earth appearance of the entire installation is reminiscent of a group school art project. Successfully, the installation doesn’t rely on the nostalgia of a demolished school, but presents child-like energy and forward-looking enthusiasm.

One highlight of the opening reception in CHAT’s main hall were volunteers and school children wearing dyed scarves while singing school songs - from a specially printed ‘school song book’ – including Kwai Chung Public School’s original school song also adopted by Pui Ying Middle School. Quietly sitting behind the singers was the large Woven Campus – powerfully capturing the life and vigour of a loved school, now gone.

Sara Tse: Seed to Textile 2025 – Woven Campus

Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile (CHAT)

10-13 January 2026