Daphné Mandel’s Vanitas: Still Life Comes to Life at the Hong Kong Medical Museum

Description

Artist, architect and urban explorer Daphné Mandel’s latest exhibit aims to uncover the soul of the city’s urban environment.

Drawing on her background as an urban planner and landscape, Mandel depicts facades across the city that tell a larger story about nature’s decaying force and serenity.

“On my daily hikes, I began to observe how man-made devices such as concrete stairs, waterworks, retaining walls, benches and tables live organically within Hong Kong’s country parks, said Mandel.

“In my new series, I attempt to capture this paradox by integrating abrupt manufactured structures into elaborated graphic compositions”.

The exhibit is based in Hong Kong’s Medical Museum  – the site of what was Hong Kong’s first purpose-built public health and medical laboratory, opening as in 1906 a Bacteriological Institute to find cures for the plague, which had decimated the city.

In 1996 the building was converted into a museum that hosts an increasing number of curious art shows alongside its more scientific and historical programmes.