Why do some people accumulate and keep stuff? Why do some people hardly throw anything away?
 
The late Hong Kong-based, self-taught artist Ha Bik Chuen (1925–2009) accumulated many things over his lifetime: from 40 years’ worth of exhibition documentation; to hundreds of boxes of magazines and printed matter; to over 2500 books, with some modified to feature collages that open up worlds of imagination. Ha’s entire collection, organised in an idiosyncratic system, was kept in his studio in To Kwa Wan until July 2016, when it was relocated by Asia Art Archive to Fotan as part of a three-year project.
 
This talk considers the role of the archive and the act of archiving as means of self-teaching. What journeys and destinations can we conjure up if we treat Ha Bik Chuen’s desire and compulsion to accumulate and archive as one driven by curiosity?
 
This talk is part of the collaboration between AAA and Guangdong Times Museum on the exhibition ‘The Man Who Never Threw Anything Away’.