This exhibition translates the book “How to Choose a Chief Executive and Other Metaphors of Hong Kong Politics” by Jennifer Eagleton into a visual and spatial experience, exploring how metaphor shapes political understanding in Hong Kong. The book contains Eagleton’s observations on how post-1997 Hong Kong’s political transition was subtly and strategically mediated through underlying political discourses in everyday life imagery, social behaviour and local humour. These metaphors are then illustrated by Alice Liu, so that audiences may see political narratives rather than decode them from dense academic texts. To achieve this, visitors were asked to move between literal and symbolic interpretation, mirroring how metaphor operates in language, to reflect upon the layers of cultural symbolism in governance (eg. authority and hierarchy, systems of selection and control…) contained in the visual allegories presented by Liu. They were also be encouraged to invent their own political metaphors in an interactive area. We served some delicious Hong Kong milk tea and egg tarts, symbolic delights from Hong Kong
