After last year’s pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong that drew thousands of mostly young residents of this former British colony into the streets in a massive but peaceful movement of civil resistance to show dissatisfaction Beijing’s plans to screen candidates for the post of the city’s leader, the Spanish Street and Fine artist Pejac, decided to embark on a tour to some cities in Asia to show support by placing the following small interventions on the streets of Hong Kong, Seoul and Tokyo.
First Stop: Hong Kong
Oppression
The intervention was set and left in front of the Central Government Complex of Hong Kong where last year ‘Umbrella Revolution’ protests were focused on.
The piece features the MSN Hotmail Butterfly trapped in a glass jar. It works as a metaphor of the imprisonment of free speech and communication that Chinese’s lives .
The butterfly is not killed but trapped, being able to see and feel, but left to slowly die.
Tagger
This piece is located in Hong Kong Central, precisely on Hollywood Road 97. In China the Dragon is a symbol of strength and power. This ferocious mythical animal, that can cause hurricanes and floods, becomes a domesticated pet.
The Re-Thinker
This piece was made on Pejac’s hotel bathroom window right before leaving Hong Kong. Pejac felt that the locals are not being left to think for themselves. Be it for the lack of time and space, or for the pace of the city. Rodin’s Thinker appears over this mega city reminding people to stop and re-think.
Next Stop: Seoul, South Korea.
Icarus
A shot down paper plane, burning as it falls to the ground. This is Pejac’s subtle way to introduce a poetic factor to a delicate political reality, as the one that is lived in South Korea.
(Located at 6-11 Hwayang-dong, Gwangjin-gu, Seoul)
Mainmast
South Korea is a country with a very rich culture, in which their inhabitants live a rather competitive system. In order to achieve their goals and success in life, especially the expectations of their elders, the young people have to find a way to stand out above others.
This work represents a young girl doing something essential: playing. She climbs to the highest of a great ship mainmast, far from the everyday structures and stress, sailing away in her imagination.
(Located at 35 Insa-dong Jongno-gu, Seoul)
Iron Curtain
This work represents a contradiction in and of itself. As a trompe l’oeil we see a semi open curtain that instead of being hold by a tie, it’s oppressed by a real metallic lock. A gentle open door locked inside a tough steel door.
(Located at 35 Insa-dong Jongno-gu, Seoul)
Transfer
Pejac recently read in a newspaper that 25% of Spanish people think that the sun orbits around the earth and not the other way around.
South Korea is much closer to the meridian 180° (Time zone 0) than Spain is, therefor a unique chance to catch the first sun and transfer it around the earth as many people of my country believe it really does.
(Located at 129-215 Dongsung-dong Jongno-gu, Seoul)
Last Stop: Tokyo, Japan
Gulliver
Pejac wanted to make a surrealistic work that plays with scale of the different elements, using a Bonsai Tree, which is an icon of Japanese culture that he has always showed interest in.
(located in Chiba)
Shark-fin soup’
This is an installation that makes use of the classic anime aesthetics to camouflage a critic to a reality much less kind: the genocide of an specie (Sharks) for which Japanese consumers are not the only but the main responsible for. A sea beast that emerges in the city revealing a human bite on its fin.
(Located in Shibuya, Tokyo)
Seppuku
Pejac originally conceived this as an ‘indoor’ painting some time ago. He couldn’t help to but to make this piece as a sort of a thank you tribute to the Japanese culture for the inspiration that drove him to create it in the first place.
(Located in Shibuya, Tokyo)
Everyone is an Artist
Making use of the Joseph Beuys affirmation, Pejac made this tribute to all the working women of the world.
(Located in Shiboku Honcho, Kawasaki, Tokyo)
Pejac
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