About
Sipping Dreams is a participatory art project by Doreen Chan, an artist born in Hong Kong and now based in New York, and is the inaugural V Hall virtual art project at Tai Kwun Contemporary.
In recent years all across the world, virtual hangouts with family and friends have become a new everyday reality for many of us, whether due to migration, forced displacement, travel restrictions, environmental concerns, or simply ease of communication. Yet how deep and intimate could we be in such calls? How do we convey complex and subtle emotions when physical interactions are rare? What if something as intimate, personal, and soulful as dreams could be rendered tangible and shared with loved ones from afar?
At the virtual bar of Sipping Dreams, Doreen Chan invites you to turn dreams into cocktails or mocktails, so that not only you could savor and reflect on deeper thoughts, family and friends old and new also get to take in—literally—the dreams you had. These mixed drink recipes are specially designed for home bartenders in the hope of opening up another layer of communication that reflects on virtual spaces and interactions as well as diasporic experiences. We hope you could commit the time and mental space to this experience, as if you have travelled all the way to a bar.
If you are by yourself, let us take you through a series of questions so we can cook up one of your recent dreams into a drinks recipe to sip with others in virtual meetups. Let the sensations of the drinks speak your mind, or else take you closer to the inner worlds of others. If you are already in the middle of a virtual gathering, try Speakeasy, too, a sequence of games put together especially for your occasion.
Perhaps such “bar talk” will take you into a dreamy, cozy, yet bold land you had never been before. What marks the boundaries between dream and reality, home and foreign land anyways?
Core Team
Doreen Chan
Social Practice & Multimedia Artist
One year after moving away from Hong Kong, I started HalfDream, a participatory art platform for dream sharing and interpersonal connections, together with a wonderful team and the support of Burger Collection and TOY meets art. The idea of Sipping Dreams germinated when I was making the first cocktail based on a dream in preparation for showcasing HalfDream at an online group exhibition. I wonder if our memories of taste and smell could act as a medium for reflecting on and talking about dreams.
I first imagined this concept while chatting with Erin online, our first catchup after both of us moved to a new city. I feel so lucky to again have such a perfect team to work with. We learn from each other, from making drinks based on dreams to transforming imagination of memories, from discussing what dreaming means to making the users’ experience more accessible. Far from home for 3.5 years, I feel like this journey has been way longer. Oh, I forgot to call my mum today. I will do it now and ask her to have a sip with me tonight.
Erin Li
Curator
This project is so dear to my heart as it coincides with both artist Doreen and me moving places — Doreen from Chicago to Pittsburgh and then to New York, and myself from Hong Kong to London. Through our countless video calls to build Sipping Dreams with the team, we raised glasses to the screen and chewed over our own diasporic experiences in transformative ways. Our everyday experiences shaped the project as much as it inspired us. I hope you and your loved ones will find your own cathartic moments here. Keep sipping. Keep dreaming.
Kit Cheung
Mixologist
With a passion for designing cocktails and menus that reflect a bar or restaurant's concept, I have been in the food and beverage industry for 20 years. The most exciting aspect is finding the reasons behind each ingredient and cocktail name. Recently I was tasked with creating 12 sets of cocktails and mocktails for 12 kinds of dreams, which was a fun challenge of combining taste and emotions with simple ingredients suitable for home bartenders. Despite the time difference, it has been a great learning experience. I am looking forward to the occasion where I can serve all 12 drinks.
Wilson Tang
Designer
I usually go to sleep right after drinking. Sipping Dreams allows me to experience such routines in a new way— sleep first, have dreams, and make drinks. I am grateful to participate in creating this experiment — transforming our subconscious into a form that satisfies our tastebuds and further connects us to our loved ones. I cannot wait to sip my own dream. Cheers!
Jimmy K.K Lam
Designer
My interpretation of dreams is that they allow us to access our sensations of love, desire, and fear within and beyond our imaginations. Sipping Dreams, to me, is an introspection to connect with our deepest emotions. COVID-19 has greatly affected our relationships with friends, family, and loved ones. My wish for this experiment is to help mend the scars and build bridges for people to reconnect with those they care for. I'm grateful for the invitation, and hope everyone can find something worthwhile within their longings.
V Hall Team:
Tobias Berger, Jill Angel Chun, Daniel Szehin Ho, Felicity Wong
V Hall Project Lead:
Felicity Wong
Copyediting:
Mary King Bradley (English), Felicity Wong (Chinese)
Translation:
Ringo