The Pleasure-Dome of Hills: A Curated Hallucination of a Modern Literati
Ora-Ora is delighted to announce a major new multi-disciplinary group show for August, and its first collaboration with independent Hong Kong-based curator Zoie Yung.
“The Pleasure-Dome of Hills: A Curated Hallucination of a Modern Literati” pays tribute to Ora-Ora’s location in Tai Kwun and Hollywood Road, including the fine rosewood furniture trade with which the street is synonymous. It opens on August 27, 2026.
The line-up of 13 artists, many of whom are from Hong Kong, is as follows: Chan Cho Kiu Bunchi, Emily Cheng, Dave Chow Yui Wang, Huang Dan, Ashlee Ip, Vann Kwok, Lam Duen Shan Ming, Lau Hiu Tung, Mindy Lui, Gerald Mak, Tse Chun Sing, Wengio Wong, and Zhang Zhihui.
Curated around the fictional layout of a scholar’s studio, the presentation juxtaposes Ming Dynasty huanghuali, Qing Dynasty zitan and Republican Period Rosewood furniture with contemporary art, crafts, and wearable art. Ora-Ora becomes a space of “polytemporality” where historical monuments and contemporary interventions seamlessly intersect. It also becomes a space where not only the beauty but the function of heterogenous art is celebrated. Huanghuali furniture’s distinct yellowish hue from the rosewood tree native to southern China was especially prized by China’s scholarly elite from the Ming dynasty to Qing dynasty. Zitan, a rare, heavy purple-black rosewood, was in demand for its colour and suitability for fine carvings. The Republican-period piece included in the exhibition blends late Qing regional aesthetics with early 20th-century craftsmanship and strongly reflects Southern, or Cantonese, furniture styles.
Noting the combination of diverse artistic forms within the exhibition, Ora-Ora CEO Dr. Henrietta Tsui-Leung commented: "The combination of Ming Dynasty huanghuali and visionary contemporary artists represents no contradiction, but is a compelling example of how art and lifestyle are entwined. For our collectors, art is an experience to be enjoyed as much as a creation to be acquired. We hope visitors to Ora-Ora will enjoy how the manifold facets of this city, and its journey from past to present, combine in beauty, diversity and variety."
The show forms part of Ora-Ora’s twentieth anniversary celebrations. In the words of guest curator Zoie Yung: “The exhibition embodies my endeavour to distil and reinterpret the contemporary perspective on Eastern ink art that Ora-Ora has dedicated itself to researching and promoting for the past two decades. This exhibition places a distinct focus on how shanshui (traditional landscape) is perceived within the fabric of urban life.”
Walking, hiking, and exercising, key pastimes in the busy city of Hong Kong, become a major theme in the show.“Wandering in China” (1886) by Constance Gordon-Cumming which chronicled Victoria Peak bathed in gentle sunlight, first helped to popularize walks upwards past Hollywood Road towards the Peak.
In Dave Chow’s “Constancy,” the ink lines traversing the canvas are, in reality, impressions from the underside of a treadmill belt. The varying shades of black lines document the inclines and distances conquered by countless users and manifest the contemporary indoor peaks of Hong Kong.
Radiating outwards from there, the curatorial narrative branches into various conceptual realms: the bone-like structure of the mountain in the flowing metal forms of Vann Kwok; a visible painterly spectrum of rhythm and time through Hong Kong artist Ashlee Ip; and the cosmological contours shaped by astronomy, philosophy, and religion by New York-based Emily Cheng. Finally, ink-on-paper practitioner Huang Dan delineates the essence of nature through empathetic detachment, minimalism and an unadorned, pure palette.
The narrative arc mirrors the experience of setting off from Tai Kwun, winding through vibrant furniture shops to arrive at the nearby entrances to urban hiking trails—culminating in a verdant, bite-sized excursion into nature.
