Grief in Elegance
A Programme of French May Art Fest
The Collaboration — Communicating Grief Collaterally through Classical Music and Fine Art
Invited by the talented award-winning pianist - William Fu, organised under one of the biggest annual art festival in Hong Kong - French May Art Fest, a multimedia enjoyment was curated where audience experience a multi-sensorial musical journey.
The theme Grief in Elegance is decided by the pianist himself, who also designed the repertoire of the concert, whose piano pieces are mainly selected from the Romantic Period.
The challenge of the design is to create a flowing storyline that connects all the dispersed selected pieces into one single story that brings out the message - Grief can also be beautiful.
Art Direction, Multimedia Design
Hong Kong
May 2021
Performed Concert
Pianist - William Fu
Multimedia designer - Rever Li
Graphic designer - Jacky Ho
Research Insights — Impressionist Period Art Work That Co-exist With Romantic Period Music
The romantic period music itself inspired and was inspired by the Impressionist artists who were born in the same era. The repertoire also resonates with the misty Impressionism.
We studied the impressionist paintings which a lot were a visualisation of the music. It is beyond fascinating that we could see the music describing the nature scenes and places that appeared in the paintings.
That is where the art direction is set - to bring the romantic period to the present real life, to the audience.
Idea Execution — Grief on Different Levels and Bird as the Anchor Point of the Experience
There is a common factor among the music choices, they all describe of either a bird, water or moon. These elements constructed the basis of the storyline.
The bird is the main character who went through grief and sadness, found peace, but eventually accepted grief as an essential part of life and found freedom within.
We designed five chapters for the story to illustrate the journey of the bird from suffering to embracing grief.
Pinpointing Types of Grief in The Recital
At the last part of the journey, we decided to prompt our audience on the question 'What is grief to you?' with different types of grief people would experienced, where the audience decides on the relevancy of each grief to them.
