Within a Sky Full of Earth

July 23rd - Wednesday - 18.00
The Master and Margarita - The Passion, Faust and Mikhail Bulgakov
A Talk by Peter Suart

The Russian writer and dramatist Mikhail Bulgakov died in Moscow in 1940. His masterwork novel. The Master and Margarita, first appeared in a Moscow journal in the 60's. It later went on to achieve cult status around the world.
In 2007 Peter Suart illustrated the book for The Folio Society in London, and it is from this work that this talk as sprung. Peter will show his illustrations for the book and discuss the following subjects:
• Bulgakov’s vision of Jesus as a non-divine seer;
• Faust, Science and the whirlpool of good and evil;
• The life and work of Bulgakov.

Peter will close with a look at the presence of some of these ideas in his own series of illustrated books, the Tik and Tok adventures, published by MCCM Creations.

PETER SUART, born in Jamaica, was raised in Hong Kong and schooled in England. In 1985 he returned to Hong Kong to work as an artist, musician, writer and theatrical performer. Since 1999 he has lived in England. He is a zealous sportsman.
[In English / Limited seating]

In collaboration with MCCM Creations • Supported by the British Council
Image frontispiece of the Folio Society's The Master and Margarita

July 26th - Saturday
The City as a Subject for Literary Expression
Talk + Creative Writing Session by Hong Kong writer Xu Xi
[15.00-17.00 Workshop / 18.00 Talk]

Focused on urban, congested life, Xu Xi, a Chinese-Indonesian native of Hong Kong, writes from within, zooming in on her own life in the city and its vanishing culture and sensibility. This surreal example of post-modernity transformed into a 21st Century Communist Chinese city informs her latest book, Evanescent Isles: From My City-Village, a collection of personal essays.

XU XI (pronounced “Shoe-See”), is one of Asia’s leading English language writers. Author of seven books of fiction & essays, and editor of three anthologies of Hong Kong literature in English. THE NEW YORK TIME named her a pioneer writer from Asia in English. Awards include an O. Henry prize story, shortlist for the inaugural MAN Asian Literary Award, Cohen Award from PLOUGHSHARES for best story, a NYFA fiction fellowship, the South China Morning Post story contest winner, among others. Her work is taught, broadcast and anthologized internationally. Her language is described as “uncluttered” and “arrestingly poignant.” She is, above all, uncompromising.
[APPLY NOW FOR THE CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP - LIMITED AVAILABILITY]

Co-organized by the Department of English of the University of Macau.
MORE INFO AT: www.xuxiwriter.com
PHOTO CREDIT: Peter Hilton

July 27th - Sunday - 20.00
The Box in Bloom

In 1987 Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing formed THE BOX, a theatrical music ensemble, and the duo presented concerts and music theatre works alone and in collaboration with visual artists, choreographers, theatre folk and musicians in Hong Kong and Taiwan. For their 20th anniversary, they play Bluebeard at the Kwai Tsing Theatre in Hong Kong

First time in Macau together, Peter Suart and Kung Chi Shing, a classical music professor, will perform a selection of material from their twenty-year history; Suart on voice (sung and spoken), keyboard and percussion, and Kung Chi Shing on violin and flute. The music is dark, bizarre and lyrical.
Words in English.

Supported by the British Council
PHOTO from 2008 show: the box, side fourteen — bluebeard CREDIT: Liu Wai Tong

July 29th - 18.00
Mighty Tuesday #1
Nine Lives, The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China, by Karen Smith
Book Presentation with the Author / Updated Edition by Timezone 8 • Mar 2008

Nine Lives introduces nine artists and their personal histories and views on China today. Karen Smith‘s highly accessible introduction to an emerging art scene in a society unknown to most of us makes good reading not only for art-world insiders, but for anyone curious about recent history and its effect on the booming Chinese society.

In the early 1990s, the idea of contemporary art in China simply did not compute to a foreign audience. But in 1993, ten contemporary Chinese artists debuted at the 48th Venice Biennale. They were immediately hailed as progenitors of a Chinese „avant-garde." Their brightly colored, Pop Art-inspired paintings played with socialist motifs, parodied Mao, and gave a visual expression to the feelings of disaffected Chinese youth. They were everything western audiences expected of contemporary art from the People‘s Republic of China. But a number of critics were rather guarded in their opinions. The emergence of a market for their art transformed the lives of these avant-garde pioneers from rags to riches, from outcast to hero, from social pariah to cutting-edge cool in a Chinese society adapting to a new era. They did not change but China has changed. The ideology they once had to fight now propagates a cultural climate of laissez-faire that is tantamount to encouragement. Nine Lives paints a compelling picture of artists working beyond the pale of official culture, who started a new cultural revolution that is sweeping China today.

Karen Smith was born in Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. She graduated from Wimbledon Art School in Fine Art. In 1988, she moved to Asia curious to explore its practically unchartered art scene. She calls Beijing her home, where she lives since 1992, and is one of the foremost authorities on China’s contemporary art scene, both in China and abroad. Karen Smith also curates exhibitions, including The Real Thing, Tate Liverpool, 2007, and Chinese Photography and Video, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, amongst others. She is also on the advisory board of Three Shadows Photography Art Center in Beijing.

The author will show the works of Wang Guangyi, Geng Jianyi, Fang Lijun, Gu Dexin, Li Shan, Zhang Xiaogang, Xu Bing, Zhang Peili, and Wang Jianwei.

Timezone 8 Limited is a Hong Kong based publisher, distributor and retailer of books on contemporary art, architecture, photography and design.
In collaboration with Asia Publishers Service • HONG KONG

August 2nd - Saturday (time to be announced)
One Couple Two Cultures: 81 Western-Chinese Couples Talk about Love and Marriage • A presentation by the Author, Dan Waters
NEW POCKET SIZE EDITION BY MCCM CREATIONS

There are those who believe a Western-Chinese marriage is no different, say, to a blond marrying a red-head, although there are others who are more cautious and say that two sometimes antagonistic cultures inevitably add heat to the mix and an added dimension to marriage. There are also opposing views and beliefs having been raised on different codes of conduct and varying lifestyles. After marriage what sort of lifestyles do such couples lead? There can be compatibility and communication problems, not just with each other, but also with in-laws and partners' friends. What cuisines do they prefer? How do they raise their Eurasian children?
While a certain amount has been written about Blacks married to Whites, and Whites to Pakistani, and so on, next to nothing has been written about Westerners married to Chinese. Researched and written by Dr Dan Waters, who can claim approaching half a century of actual experience in such a marriage, is the best person to research the subject of mixed marriages.
One Couple Two Cultures is based on original research of eighty-one couples involving among others Chinese from the People's Republic of China and Caucasians of different nationalities. Examples included in this book are of both successful and not-so-successful unions.

Dan Waters was born in 1920 in Norwich, England, a city of pubs and churches. 'There's a pub for every day of the year and a church for every week'. He's now 88 year old and a whole life of experience. Dan and his Hong Kong Chinese wife, Vera Chan, were married on the Queen's Birthday in 1960, and they have lived together in Hong Kong ever since.

THE PUBLISHER
Since going into book publishing in 2001, the aspirations of MCCM Creations in books have not changed: a wish to bring to you original and inspiring books from creators who share a passion in books as well as having a strong desire to explore new concepts and visualise their experiences, stories and perception in their medium of preference - words, images, sound etc… who often take them across boundaries of illustration, visual art, design, architecture, photography, culture, socio-culture, and literature. Their titles have ‘crossover’ appeals to different age groups and interest groups. MCCM is owned by Mary Chan.
Event Co-Organized by MCCM Creations

August 3rd - Sunday - 18.00
China: Portrait of a Country A book launching presented by Pulitzer-winning photojournalist Liu Heung Shing

China: Portrait of a Country is a landmark on the history of publishing. Initially a book on photography it brings the whole history of a country from the past 60 years to a vivid and close-up form. After a research that took more than 4 years, Liu Heung Shing shows the work of 88 Chinese photographers who gave their perception along the extraordinary hardship that makes way to the humanistic course of this immense country. A document that will make its own life on the standards of gradual change and a monument on the passion of photography. When China opens the curtain at the summer Olympics in 2008 and the world’s focus falls upon Beijing, these images will serve to map out the remarkable road the Chinese have traveled to rejoin the rest of the world and the process by which China navigated the path from periphery to a central position in the world.

Liu Heung Shing’s journalistic involvement with China runs parallel with the development of the People’s Republic. Following the 1979 China-U.S. diplomatic normalization, Liu was Time Magazine’s first photojournalist based in Beijing. His first story was on the death of Mao Zedong. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the The Associated Press in Beijing (1979-1983), Los Angeles (1983-85), New Delhi (19851-89), Seoul (1989-1990) and Moscow (1990-1993). Liu is the author of China After Mao (Penguin 1982), and USSR: Collapse of an Empire(Associated Press 1992). In 1992 he shared the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography on the coverage of the Soviet Union, and in 2005 French Photomagazine named Liu Heung Shing one of the 100 most influential figures in contemporary photography.

THE PUBLISHER
TASCHEN is an art book publisher founded in 1980 in Germany. Taschen has been a noteworthy force in making lesser-seen art available to mainstream bookstores. Bringing this art into broader public view, by publishing potentially controversial volumes alongside its more mainstream books of comics reprints, art photography, painting, design, fashion,advertising history, film, and architecture. TASCHEN's mission is to choose the most interesting, important, and pertinent subjects within a delectable range of disciplines, to make beautiful, unique and high-quality books.
Co-Organized by TASCHEN • Hong Kong