Kung Fu Motion: the living archive

The exhibition Kung Fu Motion: The Living Archive opens on April 28. It accompanies the integration of ArtLab into EPFL’s College of Humanities and kicks off a stimulating series of fresh programs at the  intersections of art/science.
 
Kung Fu Motion is the story of the dynamic traditions of Southern China and Hong Kong’s martial arts, seen through the lens of advanced archival technologies. At the intersection of art, science and ritual practice, the exhibition opens up new perspectives for our embodied engagement with intangible cultural heritage.
 
Kung Fu Motion is part of a major research initiative between Switzerland and Hong Kong. It is an ongoing collaboration between the Laboratory for Experimental Museology + (eM+) at the Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)'s Digital Humanities Institute, the International Goushu Association, and City University of Hong Kong.
 
Hong Kong is an extraordinary reservoir of intangible heritage. From the early to mid 20^th  century Hong Kong provided refuge to teeming thousands of immigrants from Mainland China, and among them were some of the most prominent martial artists in the world. With globalisation, urbanisation and dwindling number of practitioners, this living heritage made internationally so famous by Jackie Chan and Hong Kong cinema, is now in danger of becoming lost.
 
“Kung Fu Motion examines strategies for encoding, retrieving and re-enacting this intangible heritage in ways that allow these archives to be ‘alive’ in the present”, says Professor Sarah Kenderdine, Director of eM+ and ArtLab.

Opening: Friday 27 April at 6 pm
Exhibition from 28 April to 26 August 2018
Entrance free