In her essay The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction (1986), legendary speculative fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin suggests that rather than a stick or spear, humankind’s first tool was actually a vessel or receptacle, used to carry both food and possessions, but also by extension stories and culture.
Ysabelle Cheung and Willem Molesworth, professional and personal partners who are the co-founders of experimental art gallery PHD, converted from a clubhouse in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay area developed by Cheung’s grandfather in the 1970s, tell Richard Lord how the essay changed their lives.
Ysabelle Cheung: “We opened the gallery in large part because we were inspired by the essay. I think I first came across it when I was editing someone’s review of (visual artist) Sin Wai Kin for ArtAsiaPacific. He mentioned that the artist had been influenced by this essay.
“I looked it up, read it, and then spent an entire day reading about the origins of the essay and about Ursula K. Le Guin, and not doing my job. I soon spoke to Willem about it. It kept coming back to me in different ways. This essay has influenced a lot of artists as well.”
Willem Molesworth: “Once Ysabelle told me about it, I saw within it the foundations for what for me felt like a philosophical legitimisation of collecting artwork.
“When I finished college, I had a notion that I’d never own anything. Then I somehow ended up working at a gallery, selling artworks for not small amounts of money. It was hard to rationalise selling people objects so expensive when I was anti-object. This essay really changed my mind.
“Collecting objects says a lot about being human and how we define ourselves.
“We approached building the gallery in terms of the essay. We took things slowly. It was the opposite of trying to grow fast, opening 20 galleries, sword-swinging.”
YC: “That seems to be the model every white cube gallery was telling us we needed to follow. All the language around the art world is extremely patriarchal. Le Guin’s essay provided a framework for what we wanted to do with the gallery.
“We allow people to linger. We have a hang-out space – a library – within the gallery. I’d love to think we’re providing a carrier bag. The space provides its own history.
“It’s not something we’ve built from scratch; it was built by my grandfather in the 1970s, so it’s already a carrier bag of stories. We want to propel it forward and provide our own.”
WM: “Building the gallery has been a really wild experience. People come in and see what we’ve done and are really flabbergasted by the space.”
YC: “We have a copy of the essay in the library. When we have visitors, we explain the origins of the gallery through that framework. Every time I read it, it still has that power over me: it inspires me to think of alternative ways of being.
“It can be easy to respond to other people’s ideas of success: rereading Le Guin’s essay is a reminder of why we started this gallery and what our larger goal is.”
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