Beyond the booths: Art Week after hours in Hong Kong

Art Week in Hong Kong ran from March 21-29, with the usual concentration of gallery openings and fair activity at the Convention Centre.

However, much of what made this year's Art Week worth remembering happened elsewhere; in converted ferry piers, prison courtyards, hotel venues, and club basements across the city.

Eaton HK's Terrible Baby floor hosted Ancestral Frequencies on March 26, a night that blurred the line between party and ritual. Tai Kwun filled its Central compound the following evening with performers ranging from a post-punk band treating the heritage site as an instrument to a Korean artist choreographing emergency evacuation instructions as live performance.

Another party definitely worth mentioning is the ten-year-old Cakeshop x Yetiout Art Week rave that continued its run somewhere with lower ceilings and a louder soundsystem.

Across town, Umami Events and Clockenflap turned Pier 1929 into something between a club and an installation. DJs included Tye Turner, Sgamo, and Just Bee on the decks, plus live scenography and a whole multi-sensory vibe that hit way beyond just the music.

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The daytime had its own highlights; a literary salon for Lebanese painter Hussein Madi at Soho House, a nostalgia-themed project in Causeway Bay, a store launch in Sham Shui Po.

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What connected most of it wasn't a theme so much as an energy of a city that knows how to throw a good week (and has been doing it long enough to make it look easy).

The gallery above captures the texture of those days and nights; the performances, the crowds, the in-between moments that don't make the programme notes.