{"id":62795,"date":"2026-06-22T13:54:59","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=62795"},"modified":"2026-06-22T13:54:59","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T05:54:59","slug":"what-is-chinese-dreamcore-hong-kong-exhibition-leans-into-millennial-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=62795","title":{"rendered":"What is Chinese dreamcore? Hong Kong exhibition leans into millennial anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/1280x720\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/06\/22\/404c549d-b59f-4253-b9eb-19f20a641922_1e9e3d00.jpg?itok=sLLJEdUt&amp;v=1782096400\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">Emerging on the internet in the early 2020s, \u201cDreamcore\u201d is an aesthetic inspired by the surreal, nostalgic-yet-eerie feel of online video games of the early 2000s. A distinctly Chinese subgenre, however, abandons elements common in Western dreamcore \u2013 such as <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">empty suburban spaces<\/span> and VHS glitch effects \u2013 and instead reflects the rapid urbanisation of mainland China.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cChinese dreamcore\u201d taps into the weird, discordant architecture that the country\u2019s netizens have grown up with and glamorises the kind of kitsch that has accompanied such fast development.<\/p>\n<div datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1xdhyk6 ec74h0k0\">\u201cDreamedcore\u201d, a mixed-genre exhibition at the <span data-qa=\"Component-Text\" class=\"css-0 ef9u0v00\">Gold<\/span> art salon run by Serakai Studio in Hong Kong\u2019s Wong Chuk Hang neighbourhood, applies this Chinese visual style to describe a pan-Asian generational anxiety experienced by millennials.<\/div>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cI\u2019ve always been very interested in dreamcore as an internet art aesthetic or just a visual style,\u201d says Shirley Lau, associate curator of Serakai Studio and a native of China\u2019s Sichuan province in her early thirties.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Lau, who moved from the small town of Guangyuan to Sichuan\u2019s provincial capital of Chengdu as a child, witnessed an abundance of urban, social and technological changes in the late 1990s and 2000s.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">That kind of accelerated change was not exclusive to mainland China, and in researching for the show, Lau discovered non-Chinese artists and designers with similar memories from that period who have incorporated them into creations that reflect the bewilderment and ambivalence towards progress keenly felt by their generation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/arts\/article\/3357564\/what-chinese-dreamcore-hong-kong-exhibition-leans-millennial-anxiety?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emerging on the internet in the early 2020s, \u201cDreamcore\u201d is an aesthetic inspired by the surreal, nostalgic-yet-eerie feel of online video games of the early&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8912,107,25198,5730,3569,5231,8458,1646],"class_list":["post-62795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-anxiety","tag-chinese","tag-dreamcore","tag-exhibition","tag-hong","tag-kong","tag-leans","tag-millennial","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}