The Islanders: Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir and Trevor Yeung

0:04Welcome to Chanel Connects, the Venice Biennale edition. It's important to be free So who was the fool who didn't recognize it all that time ago? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it is seduction, oh absolutely Just another woman trying to survive So who of them is lying? I wish that were the case Well let's face the terror of the new work then And this is what art is so good at I don't, do you prepare? No, no, no In this season of Chanel Connects we've taken up residence in Italy to go to the center of the art world. Listen in to the artists, curators, thinkers, and makers behind the Venice Biennale, the world's most important exhibition of contemporary art, now in its 60th edition.

0:49Each of our guests is focused on what matters most and what happens next. I'm Yana Peele, Global Head of Arts and Culture at Chanel. Thank you for connecting with us. Could you tell where my head was at when you found me? Me and you went to hell and back just to find peace The poet Andrei Kodrescu described Venice as a place of fleeting beauty. The knowledge that we won't be here for long gives everyone an intense appetite for living, he said. Beauty and nature are key concerns for our guests this week. Icelandic artist Hildegunur Burgisdottir and Hong Kong's Trevor Young. After a hectic week installing their exhibitions, they sat down with moderator Penny Martin in Venice's Conservatorio de Musica with the sound of an opera class drifting through the corridors.

1:42Penny started by asking them how they were each enjoying the Biennale experience so far.

1:55It's been magnificent. How so? having my dear friends helping me. You know, it's a small country. We're all friends. I've been having the, you know, time of my life, really. It was kind of a decision I made that I would like to do a project like this only if it could be a pleasant experience. So we made it one. So it's been amazing. What do you avoid in making it a good experience? I need to have a good attitude and have perspective. and I get that through my family, I guess. They're not necessarily, my partner is not the biggest art enthusiast. So come home in the evening and he doesn't even know the title of my show and that's perspective for me and it's exciting and nice and that makes me more relaxed and it makes this experience a happy one.

2:51Trevor, what's it been like for you this week? I feel so connected in a way because, I mean, Hong Kong is relatively also small. Relatively, yes. I mean, compared to that, like, no. But I mean, the art community is also quite small and everyone knows each other. And I think this is the first time that I really built up a team and we all come here to set up the exhibition together. So we were like 10 people, 10 of us, like coming to here like for one month to build up the whole thing together. And I think that's one of the beautiful things that happens. Before we get on to what's exactly inside your exhibitions, let's spool back a little bit to your arrival.

3:34How well do you know Venice? And what do you enjoy most of the city? Have you been here often? Yeah, I've been here quite often. I came here first time, I think, well, I know it was 20 years ago. And I was very pregnant and I had an awful experience. It was a heat wave, mosquitoes, pregnant, very nauseous through the whole pregnancy. It was a demon-like pregnancy on boats and had young friends who wanted to party. You can just imagine sitting the only sober person in a party in a heat wave in Venice. It's not a pleasant thing. And I was just like, yeah, I didn't really believe the city. I was like, this feels fake to me.

4:17This is like a Disney world, you know. So then I came back and I've come back so many times. And every time I fall in love with the city more and more. Yeah, so I'm falling hard. So what are the romantic highlights now that you're better acquainted? I got to teach here, which was amazing. And then you get to know the everyday. And I am really in love with the everyday and the island mentality, which I, of course, know a little bit from Iceland. And just fixing it, you can't run to any store. We don't have particular stores for everything. This MacGyver way of just getting it done, which is in my blood, really.

5:00And I see that so much in the Venetians that live here. Does that pragmatism resonate with you, Trevor? I saw you nodding vigorously at island mentality. Well, I think all the artists who are setting up exhibition or making the projects here, everyone is looking for similar things. Like even like masking tape or like tape or like glue. So it's like the circus coming to town. Literally everything is in that wagon. Well, tell us how that applies to Courtyard of Attachments, your show. What's the first thing we see? The first thing that we see will be like a fountain with like 20 fish tank. Like you can actually smell, actually maybe you can smell some of the seawater.

5:40But at the end of the show, you will see like a pink room, pink lighted room with like more than 40 fish tan, but all empty. When you talk about Hong Kong and Venice, it's also like both like cities that live like really set with legs to the water. And in a way that in Hong Kong, because I grew up in Hong Kong, like we can see like the sea legs to us. However, we don't really live like with the water. The food, like we are not getting the seafood that leads to Hong Kong. We are importing the seafood. And also the life of water is not really connecting in a way. But in a way that you connect that, we have a strong pet culture.

6:25Like we love little animals. Like actually aquarium is the best like pet to kind of have in Hong Kong. And I think this is also the pet that I have since I grew up as a kid. and in a way that the sea is like right next to you. Like in Hong Kong, basically, you can go to any like beach or like next to the ocean within 30 minutes. But at the same time, like even though, do I go to a beach that much? Maybe once a year. So it feels very distant. So somehow the chance of touching the water, touching the sea, is not that as close as here. But I believe for you, there was a personal connection. Did your father not own a seafood restaurant?

7:08Yes, my father owned a seafood restaurant in China. So they always have like an aquarium outside the restaurant that you can see all the fish screaming, not screaming, but screaming. But in a way, you think of like actually those are the fish that's going to be killed and cooked and being eaten. Screaming, it kind of makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, but when I was a kid, like I spent like quite a lot of time And I think it starts to make me feel the connection with the little fish. And I also look at the people who are working in the taking care of those like that civil corner. You feel that they're quite laid back.

7:49So they are taking care of the fish compared to people who are working in the restaurant. They're the easygoing one. So it kind of makes a contrast about, oh, it seems I want to be in a kind of safe place. Hilde Gunner, introduce us to your exhibition. What are you exploring? My kind of speculations and my results or understandings of being a person within a system of sorts, the capital system. And I have this thing where I wake up every morning astounded that human race has come to this. And I kind of, my works are always a reflection on that disbelief. You called them objects teased from the systems of commerce.

8:37Yes. So what are those materials? Describe them to me. There are two large silhouettes made from this new invention, a veneer made out of ute bags, which are used to transport coffee, which is very related to Venice and Venetian history in some sense. One of the pieces was actually supposed to be made of blue denim. That broke on the way, so it was quickly fixed and is now also a youth bag. So I went from retail to commerce with that piece, but still very relevant and exactly what the show needed, of course. Everything happens for a reason, I guess. Could these exhibitions have happened anywhere?

9:25What's specific about Venice as a context for you? I know your connection. I know something. Yeah, you start. Aren't you pumping water? Yeah, pumping water from the canal. Into the lagoon. Tell us about that, please. How does it smell? I mean, actually, it's not that bad. Oh, good. Yes, but I mean, the first time we have to clean the field, we have to clean the bottom of the pool. So when we start to work on this project, We think of like all the water, how to get the water. But we all feel like, oh, the water is quite dirty. So in a way of the best thing is let's do something to filter the water.

10:00And this is what we do every day when you have an aquarium. So we got the permit to kind of extract the water from the sea and then we like filter it and then it becomes the work. As we have talked about, I was invited to do the show and I decided to do my next show and it just happens to be in Venice. But of course, I get like a model that is the space that I have. And I found a window hidden behind the wall and I opened and then there was a canal and then there was a wall behind that. And I hung a billboard on that wall. So it's been like really emerged in the space. But I have slowly also, you know, understood that my show is called That's a Very Large Number, a Kommersbau, which is like a nod to Kurt Sviters, but also just about commerce, which Venice is like, like we talked about with the youth bags of coffee.

10:51It's a very commercial place. It's an old place of commerce. So like slowly I've understood that my show that I thought was just my next show is a very Venetian show. I have a plastic pizza in the wall that is made in China. And every Venetian that has ever walked through like, ah, like all the pizza in Venice. they're like, oh, it's like a social commentary. And I didn't really know and understand that before I installed how very actually like a site-specific thing it is indeed. Am I right in saying that you're both describing a sort of antipathy towards man's relationship with commerce and manufacturing and nature?

11:31I wonder how much that's informed by your respective upbringings and the kind of environments that you grew up in. I think it's very connected with me and I can hear that, you know, your father's history and the fascination with the fish tank. I'm also very curious and interested about the empty fish tank and also this way of like how we approach nature when we live in places that have excluded the sea. And you have to, all the things you have to do to make a natural habitat for a fish, but there's nothing natural about it. That's really, it's ringing my bell. So I'm really excited. I actually wrote Trevor down for one of the people I really wanted to see before I came here.

12:12So I'm so excited to see his show. But on the topic of like my upbringing is a huge reason for me not working with nature, coming from a place that is very connected to nature. The city is small. Nature is all around. You take 20 minutes and you're in nature. It's kind of intense. But lovely. But my work is always kind of like just talking about this capitalism that has swallowed the universe or like the globe. And I'm so interested in that. And I think it comes from exactly that. We used to be so connected to nature, but also just deprived of modern ways of life. And it all changes in the Second World War, where we have our independence in 44.

13:02And before that time, like my grandmother lived in a turf house for, you know, it's, and I am like talking to her in the car when I'm eight playing my Game Boy. So that's a harsh shift. I think Iceland was and still is because of the lack of people there. Capitalism doesn't really work there perfectly. so I can always I've always kind of seen through it and that makes me so interested when you see the flaking of the system then you really realize that it is a system and man-made thing and not a law or a natural law and that makes me so interested in the state of things so yeah I think it's really influenced the way I do my art like when you're also talking about system I think it's so interesting that we are very We can't speak to them, but at the same time, because of our background, like in Hong Kong, we have so, I mean, they have like leachers in the surrounding, but it's like the core thing is we are in a city.

14:03So I was trying to like mimic using a lot of like artificial like language or even having like an aquarium that try to mimic nature. And even though when people see my work about garden, they think that probably I live with nature. But the thing is like I live in like a concrete jungle. I mean, this is always people talk about Hong Kong concrete jungle. And in a way of they have like all the things that I was like expecting about nature is something that ideally shaped like by people. Like I'm interested on the plants, but somehow they are kept in a greenhouse. What role can artists play in discussions about destruction of the environment and about climate crisis?

14:48Do you feel that there is a duty to touch on that? I mean, I think it's just a part of being human today. It's in your face. It's, you know, and being an artist is kind of always trying to be honest or just trying to make it come from yourself. So it can't be a thing that you take on. And now I'm going to talk about nature, but it has to really be something that is within you and comes from living in a concrete jungle or a place where capitalism just took over overnight. And you really are like, what is this? So I think for me, I had like an epiphany as a kid because I was an anxious kid where I understood that I was really a speck in the universe, a tiny speck before that being very anxious.

15:34And I understood that I had no real importance. I was as important as dog poo or dog poo is me. It's like, doesn't really matter. Which was really relaxing. Bacteria will prevail. And, you know, I was happy about that. It made me less anxious. But then as I grew up, I love people and I love human beings and I really do not want them to suffer. So I had like, oh, no, I still have a moral issue here. And I had a horrible time getting to terms with entropy just in its entirety. I was like, I cannot open this door because I will use the hinges, you know. But then slowly I also had to come to terms with that.

16:18And I am a part of this system. And that is very helpful for me because I was paralyzed for a few, like a couple of months before a big show where I just didn't want to do more work. And it's because of this, you know, problem of overproduction. And then I had to kind of like breathe into it. And I'm part of the system and I'm reporting from within the system. I cannot have like a vantage point from outer space or outside the system of commerce because I am also the problem. So for me to deal with it is through the beauty and tragedy of the situation. And I really want to affect people with beauty, thought, moments.

17:06And that's why I do my art and that's why I exhibit my art. I also constantly think about like, oh, how to kind of be responsible in a way. I mean, the best way is like, don't do anything, like don't do artwork. I mean, this is the best way, like you don't produce anything. But in a way that as a person, as an artist, there's something that we can do, something that can go further. Empathy is something that I believe a lot. And at the same time, when you have to acquire, when you look at the fish, the way that you feel connected with the fish, you position yourself as a fish. it becomes something very important of like the audience who experienced my work.

17:44I want them to feel like not what the artists feel. It's about what the audience feel, what the fish will feel when they see an empty fish stand. Because those fish stand, they have like a mirror at the back. So somehow that you look at yourself. And so in a way that it really question about how a audience, how as a human being, how they think about something, Think about plants, think about like other animals, because at the end we are just equally the same in the earth. You both mentioned challenges in installing your specific shows. Give us an idea of how you overcome those kinds of roadblocks.

18:23I think like, because I mean, since I was in like learning arts, we always have to deal with like being alone or doing things alone. And for this project, that's the first time that I started to, I mean, I still build up my team because you cannot do everything alone. And I think the way that I overcome difficulties or like the challenge is like to trust other people and also believe on people that they are helping you. And I think this is the hardest part. But I think once you overcome that, you are much stronger than you think. That's beautiful. Yeah, you have to have trust. and we seem to have had the same experience of having really trustworthy people around, both the local ones and the team.

19:11The approach has also been with me here is just kind of engulf or like emerge the problems inside the work and somehow it's now a part of the show. Oh, I have the same problem, like physically. Like I have to deal with the tap water in here. Because it's like a problem that's also a definition. Like what's problematic about this? oh it's broken could that be a thing uh so it's been less fixing and more maybe reconfiguring or and with a good team that is awesome um and yeah and have faith in others and not because if you don't do that then paranoia ego gets in your way and and yeah and that's it's not a nice place we'd love to finish up by asking you the same question that we're asking all our conversation professionalists as part of Chanel Connects and that is what are you excited about for the future of art?

20:08I think in the way that when we think about future, when we talk about future is always something very far but actually the next day or the next second is the future already. I just think like just be who we are and try to believe on things that we believe. Yeah also I just remembered like because I teach a lot and I teach art students and of course they are the future of art and I'm always intrigued. You know, after what it used to be, when I was being taught, it's like, you don't do this. There are a lot of like do's and don'ts and da-da-da. And then they are inside me, even though I'm trying to slowly kill all of them.

20:48And then I'm teaching and I'm trying to be a very kind of like open teacher. So I approach each student really like open and interested and they bring me something that is totally forbidden by these invisible laws of art. something I've never seen before and I could not understand why a person would make such a thing. And that makes me so excited. It's just things, I don't even know the things the future will provide. But oh my God, when I see something that I have no understanding of, it's like, yes, thank you. And this is what art is so good at. Yeah, I cannot agree more. I think that's a very good place to start a hopeful place.

21:29Thank you very much, Hilde Gunner and Trevor. Thank you to Hilde Gunner and to Trevor and to Penny Martin for moderating that conversation. Both artists talked about getting to know Venice, so we asked some influential visitors to the Biennale about their favourite corners of the city. Where's the best place to eat? I do have one, Arturo, because it's like the only place you can eat really good non-fish food. I would say just a scoop of gelato on a random street. I mean, Harry's Bar is good. They have some good food. We got good food tonight. There are these amazing restaurants with the kind of best staff that you can encounter, especially considering the pressure on it being such a tourist destination.

22:17They can feel very familial when you find the right spot. Harry's is a pretty good place to go. And then I like lots of other small restaurants that are maybe off the beaten track. I've spent time in Venice over the years, and I'm sure this restaurant has probably closed, but there was a great restaurant called Filia delle Stelle, which overlooked the water. And we used to have these fantastic dinners after we installed a show outside and eat delicious tuna and bacalaat and all kinds of Venetian delicacies. So yeah, that sticks in my memory. I love Olivaneri, and I feel like we found it 25 years ago.

22:52And now everyone goes there, but the fried squash blossoms are amazing. and the squid ink, like, with the polenta is to die for. There is absolutely no good food in Venice. It is a total myth. There is necessary food in Venice, though, and that, when it comes, you take it and you enjoy every bit of it. As soon as somebody gives you something to eat, you take it in this city during the Venice Biennale.

23:19Thank you so much to all of our contributors who joined us in Venice for the 60th edition of the Biennale. Thank you for listening to Chanel Connects, the Venice Biennale edition. Now the number five is very important in the house of Chanel. So please consider giving us five stars on whatever platform you're listening to us. Please follow the show so you don't miss an episode. For another conversation touching on the relationship between mankind and the natural world, Why not listen back to Annika Yee speaking to John Accomfra, British Pavilion artist at the 60th Venice Biennale. And for more on AI, there's a fascinating chat between Sarah Maiohas and Albert Reid in season three.

24:03You can find those and lots more on Chanel.com. Next time on Chanel Connects, celebrated designer Michael Rock connects with Irma Boom, the queen of books. Together, they discuss the rich history of bookmaking in Venice, books as luxury items, and why books will live on so vibrantly in our digital age. People say the book is dead or something. I think the book is more alive than ever. And the future for the book is, yeah, because it's such a stable medium. And also think that you don't make books for the past or present, but books are really made for the future. See you next week on Chanel Connects.

24:49Thank you.