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LIFEmagazine 2019-2020 Issue

教育 Education

Not your Typical Art Studio

[An Interview with Seika Studio]

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Art and environmental education might seem totally irrelevant at hindsight, but Seika Studio, a Hong Kong-based art studio has been working on how to integrate the two. Their work promotes the beauty of nature, and so much more beyond that!

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Text: Christie Lai / Interview: Christie Lai and Samantha Leung

Seika Studio, founded in 2017, is a Hong Kong-based arts and crafts studio that creates work inspired by nature. “Seika” comes from the Japanese word "せいか" which translates “blue flower”. It represents the blue and white porcelain from the Chinese Tang Dynasty, and the elegance and aesthetics are what Seika Studio aims to present in their works. Seika Studio is founded by Billy and Duncan, with the initial idea of just transforming their hobbies into business; but very soon, their backgrounds influenced them to use nature as inspiration. Their first nature-related exhibition was “Twelve Local Seafood” （本地十二鮮）, inspired by Billy’s background growing up from a fishing family who used to live on the water. The exhibition highlights 12 local seafood as art installations and representation of fishery, it was featured at seven piers under New World First Ferry, Central Pier 6, North Point Ferry Pier and Hung Hom Pier to name a few. 

 

Duncan mentioned, “Although we only started off this business purely for our own interests, as our business grew, we wanted to contribute to society and one day Billy came up with the idea of Twelve Local Seafood. We had no prior knowledge of ecology or nature, but as we started researching more for our projects, our interests grew and it eventually became the direction of our studio!” 

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An Installation of the "Twelve Local Seafood" at the Mui Wo Pier

Billy and Duncan believe that in order to raise conservation awareness, acknowledgement is key as “acknowledgement becomes knowledge, and knowledge becomes cherishment"（認識變知識，知識變珍惜）. Through their simplistic style of art, they hope that their audience will acknowledge the presence of different organisms and will be motivated to learn more about the rest, promoting self-actualization towards conservation. 

 

Knowing that the use of paint or other art materials will pollute the environment, Seika Studio aims to minimize the cost of the environment in their upcoming projects by using more digital art and utilising collected materials from the sites for art installations. They also hope to launch drawing classes for 6 to 12 year-olds as well as collaborations with schools to promote environmental education as it is easier to nurture an environmentally-conscious lifestyle. “Art has no boundaries, we want to collaborate with people that have ideas but lack of skills so that we can present the beauty of our nature together. “ Lastly, Seika Studio wishes to collaborate with people from different fields to express their perception of nature, so that they can influence a wider range of people to acknowledge our nature and build knowledge around it, and hopefully, start protecting it.

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p.s. They also kindly provided illustration for our newest issue of the newsletter. Go check it out!

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