past activities

CANTONESE AND TANG POEMS ; 3 sessions 18 July - 8 August, 2009

HONG KONG IN THE EYES OF SHU XIANG-CHENG, organised by Storytelling Hong Kong; 15 August, 2009

THE JOY OF HIKING ; 3 sessions 29 August - 12 September, 2009

ACQUIRE SKIN BEAUTY NATURALLY : talk by Maggie Kwok; 26 September, 2009

SELECTED PASSAGES FROM CLASSICAL CHINESE; 2 sesssions 10 October - 17 October, 2009

SWEDEN: NOTHING BUT NOBEL : talk by K. F. Chor; 14 November, 2009

AUTUMN WALK to the Peak; 21 November, 2009

POETRY SESSION for December: guest poet Joseph Lee, organised by KUBRICK POETRY; 12 December, 2009

BEYOND TRAVEL (1) : IRAN RENDEZVOUS : 2 sessions talk by Almanda Cheung; 20 February - 27 February, 2010

BEYOND TRAVEL (2) : SKETCHES OF TURKISH DELIGHT : talk by Laurence Shek; 24 April, 2010

“CLOUDS RAMBLE, RAIN IS BROUGHT FORTH” art contest : July - September, 2010; for details, please visit the webpage Art Contest

WHAT IS MUSIC? － talk by Gwendolyn Wong： 21 August, 2010 －－ An informal discussion on multiple definitions music. We will also talk about possible origins of music, as well as social and biological functions of music. By looking at how some musicians, scientists, psychologists, anthropologists, etc., define music, hopefully we will be able to find its meaning in ourselves.

MUSIC, EMOTION AND PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS － talk by Gwendolyn Wong： 28 August, 2010 -- Do you know the changes that happen to your body when you listen to music? We will discuss how music affects our emotion and causes physiological changes. Come to this session and volunteer to be a research subject; we will conduct a live mini-experiment during this talk.

THE LAST SUNDAY OF SUMMER, an A Cappella Performance by The Hot Potters : 29 August, 2010 -- Summer is almost over, spend the last Sunday of summer with us. We are honored to have invited The Hot Potters, an a cappella group which sings without instrumental music accompaniment. The Hot Potters consists of a solo voice, a soprano, an alto, two tenors, and a bass and vocal percussion. The Hot Potters will sing various English Pop classics songs and do a live demo session with our audience.

EILEEN CHANG UNCOVERED : Public Exhibit (co-hosted by the Project for Public Culture of Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU)：17 - 19 September, 2010

NATURE IN MUSIC (1): MOON and NIGHT － talk by Gwendolyn Wong： 18 / 19 September, 2010 -- A music listening and appreciation session – as Mid-autumn festival approaches, why don't we listen to how various composers depict the beauty of Moon and Night?

MOZART’S EFFECT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT － talk by Gwendolyn Wong： 25 / 26 September, 2010 -- Parents, does letting your child listen to Mozart's piano sonatas everyday increases his/her IQ? Since a group of researchers found positive effect of listening to music by Mozart in 1993, the media hype and popularization generated a variety of products aiming to improve child cognitive abilities. We will explore the different scientific findings on the effects of music listening and learning in child cognitive development.

BRAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MUSICIANS AND NON-MUSICIANS - talk by Gwendolyn Wong: 2 Oct, 2010 -- Does learning how to play a musical instrument make you smarter? This talk will focus on scientific findings on the neurological differences between musicians and non-musicians.

GHOST TALK ON THE EVE OF HALLOWEEN : 30 October, 2010

GERMAN EXPRESSIONIST PAINTER EMIL NOLDE – talk by Joseph Lee : 20 November, 2010

GWEN BOOK CLUB (1) "the unbearable lightness of being" by Milan Kundera: 4 December, 2010

"PHOTOGRAPHING CHINA" talk by Aaron Li: 11 Dec 2010

"PHOTOGRAPHING CHINA 2" talk by Aaron Li: 22 Jan 2011

GWEN BOOK CLUB (2) "Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown" by Alan Watts (1) : 29 January, 2011 -- A mountain journal written by a western philosopher famous for his interpretation in Eastern philosophy, which concerns the topics such as the philosophy of nature, ecology, aesthetics, religion, and metaphysics. This meeting will discuss the first half of the book, from “The Water” to “Black and/or White.”

MUSIC AND EMOTION - talk by Gwendolyn Wong : 12 February 2011 -- Do you know the changes that happen to your body when you listen to music? We will discuss how music affects our emotion and causes physiological changes. Come to this session and volunteer to be a research subject; we will conduct a live mini-experiment during this talk.

GWEN BOOK CLUB (3) "Cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown" by Alan Watts (2) : 19 February 2011 -- A mountain journal written by a western philosopher famous for his interpretation in Eastern philosophy, which concerns the topics such as the philosophy of nature, ecology, aesthetics, religion, and metaphysics. This meeting will discuss the second half of the book, from “Consider the Lilies” to “Protogenesis.”

"PHOTOGRAPHING HK COUNTRYSIDE" photos sharing session: 12 Mar 2011

YUSHIHOUSE (CHINESE) BOOK CLUB (1) "the unbearable lightness of being" by Milan Kundera : 19 Mar 2011

GWEN BOOK CLUB (4) "the heart sutra" : 2 April 2011 -- One of the most important sacred texts of Buddhism / Zen Buddhism; only sixteen sentences, but full of wisdom, expounding the concept of EMPTINESS.

YUSHIHOUSE (CHINESE) BOOK CLUB (2) "the Soul Mountain" (1) by Gao Xing Jian : 30 April 2011

GWEN BOOK CLUB (5) "the snow country" by Yasunari Kawabata : 14 May 2011 -- In this book Kawabata explores the meanings of Life through the doomed love between a geisha and a wealthy diletante.

YUSHIHOUSE (CHINESE) BOOK CLUB (3) "the Soul Mountain" by Gao Xingjian : 28 May 2011

GWEN BOOK CLUB (6) MY NAME IS RED by Orhan Pamuk (Chapters 1-30) : 18 June 2011 -- "In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. The stories accumulate and become more detailed as the novel progresses, giving the reader not only a nontraditional murder mystery but insight into the mores and customs of the time. In addition, this is both an examination of the way figurative art is viewed within Islam and a love story that demonstrates the tricky mechanics of marriage laws. Award-winning Turkish author Pamuk (The White Castle) creatively casts the novel with colorful characters (including such entities as a tree and a gold coin) and provides a palpable sense of atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire that history and literary fans will appreciate." (Library Journal)

YUSHIHOUSE (CHINESE) BOOK CLUB (4) "Ancient Capital" by Yasunari Kawabata : 9 July 2011

GWEN BOOK CLUB (7) MY NAME IS RED by Orhan Pamuk (Chapters 31 - end) : 23 July 2011

PIANO RECITAL by GWENDOLYN WONG : 30 July 2011 -- Our musician-in-residence Gwendolyn Wong gave a piano recital / music sharing session at the gallery, where she performed works by Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, and Ravel. She shared with the audience her ideas about the piece and her joy in playing it. ( attendance by invitation)

TALK ON "CI" (1) WEI ZHUANG : 29 October 2011

ENGLISH BOOK CLUB (8) BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre : 12 November 2011 -- moderator: DAVID BIDDLECOMBE -- "Unmissable! Laying about himself in a froth of entirely justified indignation, Goldacre slams the mountebanks and bullshitters who misuse science. Few escape: drug companies, self-styled nutritionists, deluded researchers and journalists all get thoroughly duffed up. It is enormously enjoyable." -The Times (Book of the Year)

TALK ON "CI" (2) LEE YU : 19 November 2011

TALK ON "CI" (3) SU SHI (1) : 10 December 2011

CERAMICS RESTORATION WORKSHOP : 7 Janurary 2012 -- tutor : Ann Ko -- Accidents can happen. One day your beloved ceramics item might fall to the ground and be shattered into broken pieces. But if you still have the broken pieces with you, you can bring them to our restoration workshop where Ann will demonstrate and teach you how to repair the item to near perfection. Or, if you are simply one of those enthusiasts who like putting pieces back together, this is the right place for you!

TALK ON GUQIN by Wang Ying Yuan : 12 January 2012

ENGLISH BOOK CLUB (9) FREEFALL: AMERICA, FREE MARKETS, AND THE SINKING OF THE WORLD ECONOMY by Joseph E. Stiglitz : 14 January 2012 -- "Written by a Nobel Prize recipient, a graduate of President Bill Clinton’s Council of Economic Advisors, and a stout advocate of Keynesian economics, this inquest into the recession of 2007–09 lashes many designated villains, banks above all. Stiglitz assails financial institutions’ size, their executive compensation, the complexity of their financial instruments, and the taxpayer money that has been poured into them. He dwells on incentives — perverse, in his argument — for risky financial legerdemain in housing mortgages. The temptations stemmed from deregulation of the financial industry, a Reaganesque policy Stiglitz rebukes: he favors re-regulation and more government involvement in the economy. In fact, Stiglitz waxes unhappily about the Obama administration’s interventions, which thus far have been inadequate in his view." (Booklist)

TALK ON 'CI' (4) SU SHI (2) : 4 February 2012

GWEN BOOK CLUB (10) THE EVOLVING SELF : A PSYCHOLOGY FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1) : 25 February 2012 -- "In this wise, humane inquiry, Csikszentmihalyi argues that genetically programmed behaviors that once helped humans adapt and multiply now threaten our survival. These traits include obsessions with food and sex, addiction to pleasure, excessive rationality and a tendency to focus on the negative. We must free our minds of cultural illusions such as ethnocentric superiority or identification with one's possessions. He urges readers to find ways to reduce the oppression, exploitation and inequality that are woven into the fabric of society. Further, he wants us to control the direction of human evolution by pursuing challenging activities that lead to greater complexity while opposing chaos and conformity." (Publishers Weekly)

TALK ON 'CI' (5) XIN QI JI (1) : 10 March 2012

GWEN BOOK CLUB (11) THE EVOLVING SELF : A PSYCHOLOGY FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2) : 17 March 2012

GWEN BOOK CLUB (12) THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS by Albert Camus : 21 April 2012 -- "The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labour" "I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the hihger fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He, too, concludes that all is well ... The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

TALK ON 'CI' (6) XIN QI JI (2) : 28 April 2012

Photos of our past activities are found in   Facebook