逆境中的藝術 : 嶺南大學 重遇越南社群藝術 展覽

貢布里希（Gombrich）在《藝術的故事》（The Story of Art）開宗明義：“世上只有‘藝術家’而沒有‘藝術’。” 藝術展覽歷來對人們來說是為了介紹古代的大師或當今的天才，所展示的是藝術作品的經典，即藝術之為藝術的成就和創新。由此看來，嶺南大學梁方靄雲藝術廊於2008年4月舉行“重遇越南社群藝術”（C.A.R.E.）展覽則完全是另一回事。 C.A.R.E.並沒展示任何藝術家的名字，不推介任何天才，也不突出任何卓越技術或藝術創造；相反，這個展覽強調展品所處的時代情境，並且探討藝術生產過程的意義。 C.A.R.E.是嶺南大學哲學系視覺藝術學士課程和園泉基督徒藝術家團契合作的成果。展覽展出的各類繪畫和手工藝品，超過二百件，均是園泉從香港船民羈留營在1988至1991年所舉辦的“越營藝穗計劃”為數共八百件作品中挑選出來的。 “越營藝穗計劃”由香港本地藝術家主辦，而作品則是男女老幼越南人在至為艱難的環境中製作出來的。 除了少數例外，C.A.R.E.的展品均以一個五位數字署名，每個數字就是一個名字，代表一名逃離越南，經歷數星期渡船的惶恐方抵達香港的船民。他們被編號烙印一刻，本名被象徵性地廢除，如同其自由和國民身份亦給抹掉。1982年，香港政府採取“禁閉營政策”，越南船民一旦上岸，便須馬上被羈留在各個臨時搭建的禁閉營內。囚禁期間，每個船民都以數字為記認。對於大多數船民來說，與其說莫失莫忘其本名，不如說痛苦得不願想起。C.A.R.E.的展品就是船民承受著身份和自由喪失的生命困境時所創作的。 At the beginning of The Story of Art, Gombrich claims that “There reality is no such thing as Art. There are only Artists.” To many people throughout the ages, art exhibitions are considered to be introductions to the ancient masters or emerging talents; they are composed of canons of works that define artistic excellence and innovation. From such a perspective, the C.A.R.E. (Community Vietnamese Art Re-Encountered) exhibition held at the Lingnan University’s Leung Fong Oi Wan Art Gallery in April 2008 was one of another kind altogether. C.A.R.E. displayed no artists’ names, promoted no individual talents, and emphasized no technical excellence or artistic innovation. Instead, the exhibition stressed the context of the times within which the exhibits were situated and probed the meaning of the art-making process of the works. C.A.R.E. was the result of a collaboration between the Visual Studies Programme of the Department of Philosophy at Lingnan University and the Garden Streams Hong Kong Fellowship of Christian Artists. More than two hundred drawings, paintings and works of craft were displayed in the exhibition. All had been selected from a total of eight hundred works collected by Garden Streams in the course of a three-year art project, “Art in the Camp”, situated in the Vietnamese detention camps in Hong Kong between 1988 and 1991. The project was initiated by local Hong Kong artists and the artworks were produced by Vietnamese men, women and children living in the most adverse of circumstances. With only a few exceptions, the works in C.A.R.E. were signed (if at all) in the form of a five-digit serial number. Each number stood for a name which had been given to each of the Vietnamese boat people on their arrival in Hong Kong after they had spent many horrific weeks at sea fleeing Vietnam. The moment each was given a number, their original name was symbolically erased, along with their freedom and national identity. Under the “close-camp policy” adopted by the Hong Kong government in 1982, Vietnamese boat people, once they had landed, were to be immediately detained in temporary set up closed camps across the territory of Hong Kong. During their imprisonment behind the walls and fences of these detention camps, each of them was known and addressed by their serial number. To most of these people, their original names were either too easy to forget, or just too painful to be remembered. The exhibits in C.A.R.E. were made by these boat people at a time when they were enduring the most chaotic drama of their lives—a drama of the loss of identity and freedom