This issue of Macau CLOSER shows the great impact art has in the lives of people and communities.
Crystal Chan, a longstanding contributor to this magazine from the very beginning, decided to swap the security and comfort of a stable job in Macau for a life of uncertainty and risk as a fine art student in New York. See how her gamble has paid off with an artistic prize that will allow her to have her first solo exhibition in the Big Apple.
Dickson Zhou came to Macau with the sole purpose of representing Macau at the 2010 Asian Games, in the Latin dance category. But his passion led him to share his technical knowledge and love for dance with young local people. Recently, he inaugurated new school facilities that he created here – and wept with joy.
Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, is an urban artist from a small country on the periphery of Europe, where artistic works are almost all destined for domestic consumption. But his enormous talent has already transported his art to the great capitals of Asia and the world, arriving now to Macau through a piece inaugurated in the garden of the Consulate of Portugal and an individual exhibition organized by the Cultural Institute.
Yes, the arts have this rare quality of allowing people to live their dreams, believing in themselves and their creativity.
But, a little paradoxically, these three cases also illustrate, in an exemplary way, much of what remains wrong in the perception of the development of the arts at the level of political decision-making in Macau.
Take the case of Vhils. By definition, it is on the streets of cities – and particularly in the most degraded areas – that his urban art, an expression of many praiseworthy causes, develops and makes sense. And yet, in Macau, he sees his work confined to a chancellery and an exhibition centre, for lack of audacity and vision by decision makers.
In the context of the Macau Literary Festival, which Macau CLOSER helps to organize, several artistic interventions by Vhils have been suggested in recent years, in different parts of the city. Two of them, in addition to adding artistic heritage to the city, were intended to honour fire-fighters, these almost forgotten heroes, and the workers in the fireworks industry, who were often also victims of high-risk work that was one of the main sources of income of this territory.
None of the ideas came to fruition, and at the same time the government has issued more restrictive legislation for the approval of demonstrations of urban art. Anyone who wants to see Vhils’ work in its natural habitat, on the streets of the city, will have to go next door, to Hong Kong, where the value of his work has deserved wide recognition and support.
Also in the case of Dickson Zhou, it is strange that it’s not the government, but a businesswoman from the casino industry, who offers financial support that allows for the survival of the dance school. Apparently, this type of education holds less merit in the eyes of those responsible for the education system in Macau.
As for Crystal Chan, it is good to see that she is in New York studying fine arts, for among other reasons, because she continues to fulfill the promise of creating an arts school in the University of Macau. A Faculty of Arts and Humanities, is however, a misleading title since the Faculty only covers departments of Chinese Language and Literature, English and Portuguese Studies, a Centre for Japanese Studies and a Program of Philosophy Studies And Religion. It appears that the arts are not among the priorities for those who think and manage the University.
This reductive approach to teaching and the development of the arts contradicts the political discourse agreed upon in Macau, which points to growing support for economic diversification and a greater plurality of tourism. It also ignores the increasingly widespread perception in other countries that today, creativity is as important in education as literacy is, and should therefore be given the same treatment and merit the same status.
Macau does not have to be at the forefront of everything, that’s true. But it clearly has to be more receptive to modernity. There is everything to be gained from it.
