BOOK:The Unappropriated Recipes,Para Site Publications

“The Unappropriated Recipes”, is Para Site’s first cookbook and crowdfunded project. The book is an unconventional publication celebrating Hong Kong through eighty contributions from a cross-section of the artists, curators, supporters, and collaborators who are integral to Para Site’s local and international community. Each of them, whether they have spent their entire lives in Hong Kong, or just a mere few days was invited to submit a personal recipe that includes an ingredient specific to Hong Kong, leading to a broad array of personal experiences, experiments, perceptions, interventions, and reactions to Hong Kong — wildly varied tastes of our city, highlighting its diverse cuisine and culture. Ko Sin Tung provides a glimpse of the readymades of Hong Kong’s home dining options pre-packaged at local supermarkets. Luke Ching Chin Wai instructs us on how to fry the whites and yolks of an egg separately, as a satirical response to “One Country Two Systems,” the constitutional principle temporarily governing the reunification of Hong Kong and China. Sheela Gowda writes a letter to her dear departed friend about a recipe they shared, through Chinese papier-mâché sacrificial offerings. Ming Wong shares a romantic timeline for a fictional love story that took place in Hong Kong, dating back from 1986 to 1996.-Dimitris Lempesis