With the support of the Tsunan Town government and in collaboration with the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale Executive Committee and the NPO Echigo-Tsumari Satoyama Collaborative Organization, the Art Promotion Office launched a three-year project titled "Hong Kong House at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale" in Sakasamaki, Kamigo, Japan in the summer of 2018, as a platform for residence, exchange and exhibition. To coincide with the 8th Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale, the second edition of the three-year Hong Kong House project has been completed. In 2023, the participating art group from Hong Kong is Toolbox Percussion, which was selected through an open call of proposal by the joint adjudication panel of Hong Kong and Japan in 2020.

The sound-based art exhibition A DOUBLE LISTEN: Yama no Oto was Toolbox Percussion’s venture into interdisciplinary practices. It features various sound artists and composers including Louis Siu, Fung Lam, Vvzela Kook and Ying Kwok. The benumbed sonorous objects, among the series of sound art installations, created a sonic experience that was both playful and contemplative.

The sonorous objects were set up to be ruptured, but this did not have to be an act of destruction. It could also have positive connotations. Traversing and crisscrossing the objects as performers, the viewers and audience were given a leak through physical and temporal rupture, resulting in intriguing seclusion. Different objects and sounds were haphazardly laid out in a finite space, leading the visitors to construct a sound after-image and a unique listening experience.

Taking wooden pedals as the starting point of the work, in a playful living room with an interactive installation of mahjong, a listening station, and a digital playground. Toolbox Percussion examined the fascinating cognitive divide between an ephemeral concept and an enduring concept. Inviting everyone to immerse themselves in ordinary spaces and discover diverse listening experiences, the exhibition inspired and refined the artistic focus of the artists into a cross-disciplinary program that resonated with visitors, artists, performers, local people, and nature.

No piece of music can be fully comprehended in one listen.

A DOUBLE LISTEN: Yama no Oto by Toolbox Percussion

Exhibition period: 29.07 — 05.11.2023

Venue: Hong Kong House
Address: 29 — 4 Miyanohara, Kamigo, Tsunan-machi, Nakauonuma-gun, Niigata Prefecture, Japan

Opening hours:
10am — 5pm (July to September)
10am — 4pm (October to November)
(Weekends & Holidays)

View and download here:
Exhibition Pamphlet (8.6 MB)