Edmund Lee talks to the thoughtful minds behind wrongplace’s deconstruction of the exhibition.

One arrives at wrongplace through “The Right Door” – or so the direction sign outside the eclectic art group’s JCCAC space says. As it turns out, that would be the last time you’ll be advised what’s definitely right in the research collective’s experimental laboratory, currently the site of an ‘exhibition’ in which spotlights are missing, lighting is natural or disco-esque, walls are bright red or green, and art works are literally scattered all over the place.

“In any given art exhibition, you’re not allowed to touch the art works. You have to speak quietly. The entire atmosphere is austere,” reflects Vivian Ting from the group’s six-member research cluster. “We want to challenge this white cube mentality. For some works, they give you something different if you’re able to touch them and have a fuller sensory experience. We want to create an interesting exhibition space where the audience can better appreciate the art works.”

Originally inspired by Sharon Macdonald’s book, Exhibition Experiments, wrongplace was set up in late 2008 by several Hong Kong art enthusiasts – from backgrounds as varied as museum curator, university professor, research coordinator and member of an alternative art space – with an aim to substantiate the possibilities of contemporary art exhibitions through a series of experiments. Instead of engaging in institutional critique, the academic group opts to trace the historical customs of the different aspects of exhibitions in a year-long project titled ‘Exhibiting Experiments, Experimenting Exhibitions’.

“We don’t want to be an art space,” says Stella Fong. “And we don’t want to be a gallery; we don’t want to copy what our neighbouring art spaces [in the JCCAC] are doing. We hope it can be an organic platform to arouse people’s curiosity on exhibition, an important form to present art works to the audience today, even though we seldom have the chance to think about the roles of all those captions, spotlights and invitation cards. Can it be done any other way? That is our starting point.”

Knowing that, however, will probably not make your visit to Out of the Box – the current ‘show’ at wrongplace and their second of four planned exhibition experiments, all staged with a fixed pool of existing works from six local artists (Hanison Lau, Lee Kit, Ivy Ma, Tang Kwok-hin, Damon Tong and Justin Wong) – any less awkward. In a dimly lit space decorated as a karaoke room, artist Lee Kit’s video is displayed alongside sketches by Ma, the signature subtlety and delicacy of whose works will have to be appreciated by means of a torch. One work by Lau is placed so high that you’ll have to climb up a ladder to see it, while viewers are encouraged to touch the art works. A facilitator, meanwhile, is present to talk to you, and video recordings of artist interviews are also on display. All in all, it feels, well, wrong.

“Is the exhibition venue a natural space, a highly-designed area, or a place of suppression?” asks Lee Chun-fung, leader of this show alongside Ting. “We’re used to exhibitions as a kind of one-way reading: artists put their works on display precisely because they don’t want to talk to you. Our concern is the potentials in this.” He goes on to speak of his visit to artist Tang Kwok-hin’s home the afternoon before we meet. “We went to his place to interview him – and his mother. Actually, the artist is not the best part, his mother is: she can be a totally blunt, and very nice, art critic.”

And, apparently, so can everyone else. In the project’s first exhibition in June, the authority of art curators’ textual interpretation of their own shows were put under scrutiny by Jeff Leung, who takes issue with local exhibitions’ tendency to provide “edutament”, an attempt to “entertain and ‘teach’ the audience about art all at once.” Art works that were previously exhibited more than twice were displayed along with records of their exhibition histories. Leung elaborates on his survey: “It is very interesting to note the discrepancies between the ways viewers and curators comprehend the works. With this project, we’re putting together the three sides of the equation: the artists’ works; the curators’ approaches in reinterpreting and replacing the visual elements of the works with their words; and the viewers’ understanding of the two.”

This study on the role of text in shaping the viewers’ comprehension will be revisited in the group’s third experiment, to be led by Selina Ho in mid-August. As it’s always been, the challenge will continue to rest on these researchers’ aptitude in turning theories and data into practical and even personal applications. “Our five researchers have been posing so many questions that I feel the need to start questioning them,” says Janet Chan, who plays the devil’s advocate role in a project that essentially began with a series of questions. Fifty of them are collected in a question booklet snappily titled Everything you always pretended to know about curating and were afraid to be asked.

For now, though, these art lovers are happy enough just to be doing something outside the box. “Our major struggle has been the fact that we don’t want to do something for the sake of doing it,” Chan adds. “Nowadays, there are way too many exhibitions being staged merely for the sake of it.”

wrongplace’s second exhibition experiment, Out of the Box, is at Unit L4-01, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, 30 Pak Tin Street, Shep Kip Mei, until August 15. Opening hours: Thu-Sun 12.30pm-7.30pm. For details, visit www.wrongplace.org.