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In essence, Hong Kong New Trend is a brilliant idea: bring over 30 graduating artists from four major art programs in the city together in one venue. It’s a chance to represent, and a quid pro quo visual exchange between institutions. The shame is that the overreaching goals of this exhibition are loosely curated, distracting visitors from cherry picking the future talents to watch – which is what these shows are really all about.

Hosted by the Artist Commune in Cattle Depot, highlights include Hong Kong Art School’s Silvia Chan King-pui's ocean washed canvas that puts nature on the wall, with sand and seawater glaze glittering between wavy lines. While in another area, artist Un Kam-sio, from Baptist University, who has the only interactive piece in the show, invites patrons to drop tiny rainbow coloured balls into a pool, and thus into the depths of her installation.

As it is a student show, there is a shocking contrast in the quality of the work. But an excitement comes from never knowing what to expect, and the sheer number of artists and institutions on display demonstrates how far our art scene has come in recent years. However as a show the curation needs to be tighter – rather than placing the artist into veins of generic thought that displace rather than organise the experience.

For this precise reason, Fong Wan-chi's pop art in-situ piece ends up snagging a big role in a show that begs for a thread to tie things together. Using perhaps the most recognizable yuppie symbols of mass consumerism, the artist commercialises the exhibition with mock Ikea signs, playing off this moment of transition from art student to an artist on the market.

A note for next year’s organisers: a little less goes a long way. Careful curating could take this forum from a promising artist gathering, to bona fide art show. Bourree Lam