He is part of the curatorial team for the 2009 Hongkong and Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (currently taking place in Hongkong until February 27). A multimedia designer, Schuldenfrei has been commissioned for art installations around the world. He chats with Christina Kautzky.
As a relatively new transplant to Hongkong, which are your favourite restaurants?
The first restaurant I was taken to here remains one of my favourites – Spring Moon at the Peninsula hotel. Then on the other end of the scale, there is a little shop in North Point. I don’t even know the name, but you go up the escalator and it’s in a cooked food market type of place. (Editor’s note: It’s Hung’s Delicacies on Wharf Road.) Both are real food experiences but obviously very different.
How do you think the Biennale will affect the development of Hongkong as a cultural hub?
It is this amazing opportunity to redefine what it is to be a cultural hub. There’s a responsibility to say that it’s not something you buy or how much cash you spend. We need to be talking about what you can do. It’s not going to a museum and seeing a Picasso. It’s about re-inventing how to work in a creative setting.
What aspects of the Biennale are you most excited about?
I’m very excited about some of the events in addition to the pieces: definitely the Shigeru Ban project (the main pavilion for the Biennale, which is made of a paper tube structure to minimise foundation requirements). He’s such a thoughtful architect in terms of engaging society. He takes into account why he designs and what the purpose is for his client. And this is the first time such a structure has ever been built in Hongkong.
Do you have any travel tips?
I like to get the most out of my days, so travelling at night and trying to maximise time where I’m being efficient is important to me. I try to keep airplane time to a minimum as well.
Any tips for kicking jetlag?
In university I took a psychology course and the professor was an expert on sleep. One of the things he noted in his study was that the best way to treat jetlag was to sit in the sun; it’s the best way to control your own sleep patterns.
Where for you are the most inspiring cities to view art?
The two places that are most inspiring for me have always been New York City and London, which are incidentally also two places I chose to live as well. In New York, it’s not necessarily the Museum of Modern Art or a museum that inspires me; it’s the small institutions that provide support to local artists, places like Creative Time and Storefront for Art and Architecture.
What cities have made the most impact on you?
I love Barcelona and Rome. In Japan, I visited Nara, which I found fascinating. And from an architectural perspective, Kyoto is the most magical city on earth; they built it knowing it’d be there forever.
What’s your favourite kind of holiday?
I like purpose-driven holidays because you interact with the city in a different way than you would if you were visiting as a tourist. We (he and business partner Marisa Yu) went to Venice for the Biennale and had to buy a few hundred plants, so we were scouring Venice and the outer countryside for all these plants. Along the way, you meet all kinds of characters. Those types of trips are quite meaningful.
