The Sun Museum was established in 2015. Last year, it bid farewell to Kwun Tong and moved to 1 Sai Yuen Lane, Sai Ying Pun. Over the past decade, the museum has brought audiences 60 exhibitions on various themes and hosted over 140 public lectures and activities. After relocating to the new site, we have adopted a more diversified operational model, which includes Café & Shop and the organisation of more cross-border cooperation activities. The Café also helps promote creative exchange and artistic development whereas the Shop carefully gathers works by local artists, encouraging the public to collect art and integrate it into their daily. We hope to promote Chinese arts and culture to the world while staying in tune with the pulse of the 21st century, connecting the community and life, and allowing audiences to appreciate the multicultural and artistic landscape of Hong Kong.

The colour stone carvings exhibition, "Colours of the Universe", is the first exhibition of ancient Chinese artefacts since the museum's relocation to its new site, and it is a significant highlight of the museum's annual “Sun Delight” programme. We are very grateful to Little Moon Pavilion and Songde Tang for lending their precious and exquisite jade and stone carving collections for this exhibition. Mr. Andrew Lai aptly titled the exhibition  "Colours of the Universe ", perfectly encapsulates the essence of the 120 exhibits. Chinese ancient arts and crafts are outstanding, and the brilliant achievements in jade and stone carving can be attributed to several factors. First is the bounty of nature, which provides various natural gemstones; over a dozen of gemstones are included in this exhibition. Secondly, the extraordinary skills of artisans throughout Chinese history are evident, with one exhibit being a "carved Suzhou agate Lantern Festival pendant" and another being an imperial white jade cup crafted by artisans of the imperial workshops. Lastly, and perhaps most creatively, is the visual form that expresses auspicious meanings. Some exhibits feature carvings of monkey, bee/wasp, and horse, playing on the homophones "ma(horse) shang feng(bee/wasp) hou(monkey)" to imply “becoming a nobleman in no time”; while another piece features jujubes and peanuts, symbolising "zao(jujube) sheng gui zi” (zi is a pun of seed, and peanuts are seeds) which means “may you soon give birth to a distinguished son”. The artisan cleverly utilised the different colours of the same piece of stone to carve brown jujubes and beige peanuts. The exhibition has many other dazzling treasures that should not be missed.

 

Sun Museum is a non-profit independent museum aimed at enhancing the understanding and appreciation of Chinese arts and culture across various sectors, while actively promoting the achievements of Hong Kong artists and fostering the development of local artistic culture. Therefore, we are launching the “Sun Refresh” scheme at the new premises on Sai Yuen Lane, which invites local artists to create works inspired by the exhibitions in the museum, showcasing fresh and vibrant creativity that resonates with both contemporary and traditional art in the gallery. The first artist to kick off this initiative is the experienced local painter Mr. John Wong, who will respond to the “Colours of the Universe” exhibition with a series of brand-new paintings.

 

We are very grateful for the support and trust of our friends in the art community towards Sun Museum. We hope to promote the sustainable development of arts and culture through concerted endeavours with everyone and also keeping our audiences engaged and informed.

 

Lesley F.H. LAU
Director, Sun Museum