Song of the Goddess似是故人來
The work pays tribute to the famous Cantonese Opera duo, Yam Kam-fai and Pak Suet-sin, both women play the role of lovers, with Yam in male drag. The couple worked together on stage and in films. They were so popular that Yam was known as “The Silver Sceen Lover.” Both did not married, and instead lived with each other for most of their lives. When Yam died in 1991, Pak arranged her funeral and wrote a banner saying “I would die a hundred times in bringing you back to me.” In this video, their film, The Emperor Lee and their own real-life story are woven together to create a mosaic to tell the tale of dying a hundred times and forever, reality and illusion, past and present, parted and together.
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about the artist /
Ellen Pau was born in Hong Kong and enrolled as a student of radiography at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 1982. She is a radiographer by profession, but being a professional radiologist didnot fulfil her creative obsessions with video art and media art. In 1984 Pau made her first film Glove, asuper-8mm artwork, which was screened internationally. She has since worked as an MTV director, cinematographer, video artist, curator, educator and arts administrator. Pau began her international career in 1995 at the Kwangiu Biennale in Korea curated by Kim Hon-Yee and Nam-June Paik. She is the co-founder and artistic director for the media art organization Videotage and has served as a member and curator of the organizing committee for the Microwave International Media Art Festival, Hong Kong since 1996. Pau teaches part-time at The University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts in addition to be a full-time medical image technologist. Pau is an advisor to the HK Museum of Art, the HK Arts Development Council and a number of festivals. She has exhibited in exhibitions including One World Exposition by Videotage and the Input/Output Gallery Relocation exhibition.
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