Alexie Glass-Kantor, Executive Director of Artspace in Sydney returns to curate the Encounters sector of Art Basel in Hong Kong for the second time, presenting 16 artworks by artists from 12 countries and territories: Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Mainland China, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The sector is a unique platform that transcends the traditional art fair stand, presenting large-scale sculptural installations and will feature work by Brook Andrew, Charles Avery, Hans Berg and Nathalie Djurberg, Roberto Chabet, Chen Zhen, Isa Genzken, Kyungah Ham, Arik Levy, Peter Liversidge, Richard Maloy, Tintin Wulia, Tromarama, Keiji Uematsu, Lawrence Weiner, Pae White and Zhang Ding.

For her second curation of the sector, Alexie Glass-Kantor explores the nature of an ‘encounter’ itself, curating an edition that aims to inspire both awe and wonder in an audience that will be required to interact with and participate in the immersive environment of many of the works on show. The number of exhibits has been reduced to 16 so artists and their galleries can be more ambitious in their presentations. This year’s edition will include five site-specific installations and six artworks that will be premiered at Encounters, including works by Brook Andrew, Isa Genzken, Arik Levy, Richard Maloy, Lawrence Weiner, Tintin Wulia and Zhang Ding.

‘I’m delighted that this year, close collaborations with the participants have resulted in a number of works that will be premiering at Art Basel, as well as site-specific works that have been created as a direct response to exploring what an ‘encounter’ is or could become,’ says Alexie Glass-Kantor, Curator Encounters. Information on individual presentations: Edouard Malingue Gallery from Hong Kong will present ‘Private Riots’ (2014 - 2016) by Indonesian artist collective Tromarama. Established in Bandung in 2006 and widely considered one of Indonesia’s most exciting rising talents, Tromarama features the artists Febie Babyrose (b. 1985, Indonesia), Ruddy Hatumena (b. 1984, Philippines) and Herbert Hans (b. 1984, Indonesia). ‘Private Riots’ is composed of a flash sequence video and a floor-to-ceiling towering swirl depicting seemingly playful protest banners, conveying the trio’s observations of Asia’s rapidly evolving cultural environment and its social, political and visual undercurrents. Underneath the towering swirl will be a square platform on top of which will be placed singular video stands with flashing images, which visitors are invited into.

Marian Goodman Gallery, with exhibition spaces in New York, Paris and London, will present a number of text works at various locations within the exhibition halls by New York-based conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner (b. 1942, United States), whose emphasis on the interaction between an artwork and the viewer was first outlined in a ‘statement of intent’, published by the artist in 1969. Created specifically by the artist for Encounters, the text work will be site-specific, with text in English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese.

‘Cargo and Decoy’ (1989/2010) by Filipino artist Roberto Chabet (b. 1937-2013) will be presented by Osage Gallery, which has spaces in Hong Kong and Shanghai. ‘Cargo and Decoy’ is comprised of plywood boards that have been coated in blue paint; the boards are then cut in half and propped between wooden sawhorses to form blue V-shaped waves across the floor. Drawn from his experiences during World War II, when the sight of fighter planes in the sky brought a sense of impending destruction, Chabet uses plywood as a material that signifies reconstruction, juxtaposed by a temporality suggested by the work's positioning, as if about to be packed away.

Osage Gallery will also present a work by Indonesian artist Tintin Wulia (b. 1972). ‘Five Tonnes of Homes and Other Understories’ (2016) is the result of the artist’s year-long investigation into the micro-economy of the cardboard recycling network in Central, Hong Kong’s main business district. Comprised of suspended bales of cardboard waste, the work embodies the development of human experiences in the accidental corners of globalized economies. The artist’s research into the network of collectors began in 2015 when she began drawing on the Filipino domestic workers’ cardboard ‘walls’ while spending time with them at weekends.