M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, and Tai Kwun Contemporary are pleased to present ETC (2023), a feature-length film by American artist Sarah Morris (b. 1967). Commissioned by M+ and Tai Kwun, ETC will be exhibited on the M+ Facade every night from Friday, 26 January to Sunday, 17 March 2024.

ETC is a cinematic portrait of Hong Kong made in the spring of 2023, presenting the city in a moment of transformation. The film documents the psychology, architecture, economies and culture of Hong Kong, layering daily life with complex histories. The film spotlights both iconic and lesser-known locations across the city including the HSBC headquarters, Legislative Council Complex, ATL Logistics Centre, Sham Shui Po’s Electronic Market, Hop Cheong Pens & Lighters Co., and Hong Kong West Kowloon Station of the High Speed Rail. Graphic designer Henry Steiner, architect James H. Kinoshita, and actress Josie Ho are featured, along with many other Hong Kong residents.

ETC continues Morris’ examination of the chain of global sites in the electronic and digital age. Since her 1998 debut film Midtown, which captures a day in the life of New York, she has made sixteen films to date. Morris’s global cinematic production has featured locations including Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Beijing, and Rio de Janeiro among countless others.

The title ETC playfully recalls the Electronic Teller Card, one of the first digital banking devices to be used around the world. Inspired by Henry Steiner’s early design for HSBC’s Electronic Teller Card held in the M+ Collections, ETC alludes to the history of Hong Kong as a global banking centre, while forming a futurist abbreviation for Morris’ latest film.

Suhanya Raffel, Museum Director, M+, says, ‘M+ is excited to collaborate with Tai Kwun Contemporary, a key cultural institution in Hong Kong, to present a cinematic portrait of our city. The commission speaks to our dedication to immerse M+ in the cultural contours of Hong Kong for the vibrant visual culture the city has to offer. It marks one more step of us working with local partners and global artists to bring another successful project to the M+ Facade.’

Doryun Chong, Deputy Director, Curatorial and Chief Curator, M+, says, ‘Sarah Morris is a multidisciplinary artist who is captivated by the psychology and aesthetics of cities. Her films often explore urban landscapes and architecture. In ETC, the artist collects impressions of Hong Kong, inspects the cultural and architectural facets with her critical sensitivity, and captures moments in an era marked by rapid change. Viewers are invited on a journey to connect with the city’s memories through visual cues embedded in its everyday scenery.’

Dr Pi Li, Head of Art, Tai Kwun, says, ‘Tai Kwun Contemporary is very proud to have commissioned, together with M+, ETC by Sarah Morris. We are pleased that this work can first be presented on the wonderful large facade of M+ before visitors get to have a different experience of the work, with sound, in a gallery-like setting at Tai Kwun.’

Tobias Berger, Curator at Large, Tai Kwun, says, ‘Since 1998, Sarah Morris has always directed her films at a very specific moment in time in a very specific place, uniquely chronicling our post-globalised world. Having her direct such a deep investigation into Hong Kong when the city is crawling its way back to life is a great manifestation of Hong Kong now—its people, their stories, and the underlying interconnections.’

Sarah Morris says, ‘ETC is shorthand for a day in the life of a city. Now Hong Kong. We filmed throughout the city in many locations – the simultaneity of all things. This is an ongoing project – a chain of interrelations.’

In anticipation of the launch of ETC on the M+ Facade, two of Sarah Morris’ previous city portraits will be screened at the M+ Cinema. Strange Magic (2014) probes the materials and processes associated with commercial production, while Abu Dhabi (2017) captures the architectural and geographical grandeur of the city. These films will be screened on the afternoon of Sunday, 21 January 2024 as part of the M+ Cinema Winter Edition.

For the details of M+ Facade and M+ Cinema programme, please refer to the M+ website.

About Sarah Morris

Since the mid-1990s, New York–based artist Sarah Morris (b. 1967) has been making abstract paintings and films which form ‘urban, social, and bureaucratic typologies’. Her work is often derived from close inspection of architectural details combined with a critical sensitivity to psycho-geography. She has exhibited extensively, including recent solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany (2023); Espace Louis Vuitton Munich (2023); Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2023); Jesus College, Cambridge (2019); UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2018); and Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2017).

About M+

M+ is a museum dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District, it is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world, with a bold ambition to establish ourselves as one of the world’s leading cultural institutions. M+ is a new kind of museum that reflects our unique time and place, a museum that builds on Hong Kong’s historic balance of the local and the international to define a distinctive and innovative voice for Asia’s twenty-first century.

About the West Kowloon Cultural District

The West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest and most ambitious cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong on forty hectares of reclaimed land located alongside Victoria Harbour. With a varied mix of theatres, performance spaces, and museums, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, providing twenty-three hectares of public open space, including a two-kilometre waterfront promenade.