Connecting Memories, or the Making of an Inverted Archival Tree

Collect. Connect. I was intrigued by the correspondence between these two words, when I, primarily as a creative writer, started my residency at the Asia Art Archive (AAA) in Hong Kong, where I was invited to focus on AAA’s Ha Bik Chuen Archive (H.B.C Archive). Ha (1925–2009) was a well-known artist, a fervent collector of exhibition catalogues, documentations, and the photographs he took at these exhibitions, among other things. Visiting the HBC Archive and his old home, I started to think of Mrs. Ha, of the impossibility of a collection without connection. We collectively remember; we connect for memories. If we can’t know of what, we can at least know with whom. This essay documents my – or our – project titled Connective Memories , or the making of an inverted archival tree, a project that brought me into contact with six young people and over to the field of music. I end with a song on faith and letter-writing.