Burns, R., Palmerini, P., 2020.

Museum of Half Truths

Funded by 1aspace and HKDF.

1a space proudly presents the Museum of Half Truths, group exhibition curated by UK-based curators Rachael Burns and Polly Palmerini, featuring New York and Hong Kong based artist Lau Wai, Singapore-based artist Moses Tan, Hong Kong-based artists Andrew Luk, Stacey Chan Lok Heng and Ip Wai Lung. Museum of Half Truths is the selected project of 1a space's "The Emerging Talents in Contemporary Art": Open Call for Artist/Curator (International).

Museums and libraries are the repositories of history but they remain flawed and biased in their representation. How can we disrupt the pre-existing structures that surround us? How can we represent fairly our many co-existing and conflicting memories and histories?

The Museum of Half Truths will aim to answer these questions by exploiting the conventions of these institutions to present a playful take on a museum that is transparent about its subjectivity.

Our compulsion to collect, archive and document history is inherently human. These artists draw from personal and historical archives and cultural tropes to investigate the relationship between fact, fiction and memory.
The artists featured question our recording of cultural memory; investigating rituals and traditions; the whitewashing of popular culture; and by memorializing and advocating for underrepresented communities.