Interview with Mongolia

1. Are there any cultural highlights you would like to share on your country?

Mongolia has a rich cultural and artistic tradition, which has been evolving from ancient times until today’s era of globalization. Performance, land, and digital art are some of the diverse aspects of Mongolian contemporary art heavily influenced by shamanic rituals, religious myths, and indigenous cultures specific to the country and beyond. Embattled by the current pandemic and ongoing ecological crisis, this could be the kind of art the world needs right now.(*1)

2. Is there any message you would like to bring up through this occasion?

The talented artists from the remote steppes of Mongolia enrich our understanding of how humans can live in harmony with their environment, in it the spirits of their ancestors being included. They are also here to remind us of how powerful the combination of tradition and modernity can be for inspiring us all to create new art for a new era.(*2)

3. Are there any artists from your country that you would like to introduce?

Each of the artists displaying their fine art works in this exhibition has his/her own distinctive style and therefore each of them is unique.

4. Are there any special exhibits/ cultural items that people shouldn’t have missed at your Pavilion? What’s so special about it?

Nowadays realism, impressionism, expressionism, abstract and surrealism styles are dominant in Mongolian art.(*3) We will bring these fine works of Mongolian artists for Hong Kong audience.

5. Would you like to share any stories/cultural highlight of your country to people in Hong Kong?

Mongolia is home to one of the last nomadic living cultures in the world. It is a vast territory, sandwiched between Russia and China, populated by 3.3 million people but home to over 70 million cattle heads. After the collapse of the USSR in 1990, democracy in Mongolia brought freedom of creating and of using innovative artistic practices. Since then, it has been the new dominant wind of change leading to the art of today. Mongolians believe in spirits and their lives connect with nature. They live in respect of the law of Nature, even in the city.(*4)

(*1) www.cobosocial.com/dossiers/contemporary-art-mongolia/
(*2) www.riskcompliance.biz/news/richness-of-mongolian-contemporary-art/
(*3) cordmagazine.com/art/contemporary-art-of-mongolia/
(*4) www.riskcompliance.biz/news/richness-of-mongolian-contemporary-art/