10 Fantasia

At the corner of Rua de Sanches Miranda and the uphill approach to the Church of St. Lazarus stands a three-story mansion, completed in nineteen nineteen. For a long time, two government services worked in its rooms, one anti-corruption and the other environmental, and after they moved out the house had no permanent use. The garden gate on the uphill approach bears number ten, although the main door on the other street is marked number three. Small rooms are now occupied in turn by exhibitions, classes, and creators' fairs.

In two thousand four, Macao cartoonist Chan Wai Fai, known as Chan Wai Fai, was trying to bring people into the nearly forgotten St. Lazarus District. Tourists hardly ever came here, and many local residents saw no reason to walk up these streets. The Creative Industries Promotion Association of St. Lazarus Church District, created shortly before, held exhibitions and performances here, but the artists still had no casual visitors.

Chan then came up with a three-day street festival, “Macao of the Sixties.” The organizers brought back signs, market stalls, and other features of the city in the middle of the century, then held fashion shows and performances here. A large crowd came to the festival. For Chan, this was a practical answer to the question that would determine the future center's fate: people are willing to come up to the district if they are shown the work of local creators, rather than being expected to find their own way.

In two thousand eight, the association proposed giving artists the vacant house at the corner of Rua de Sanches Miranda and the uphill approach to the Church of St. Lazarus. The three-story mansion had been completed as early as nineteen nineteen. The Commission Against Corruption and the Environmental Council were later housed there; after they moved out, the rooms were left without a permanent use. The association needed small spaces for individual exhibitions and classes. On September nineteenth, two thousand eight, 10 Fantasia opened here.

One building was not enough. Young creators were not lining up at the entrance with ready applications, so Chan went to schools himself, looked for students who had something to show, and invited them to exhibit in these rooms. He understood their situation well: selling paintings and drawings in Macao rarely provided an artist with an income, while publishing his own books depended on public funding. So the center helped newcomers do more than just hang their work. The staff discussed posters, promotional copy, and press outreach with them—in other words, they taught them how to carry an idea through to meeting the public.

A few years later, the direction of movement changed. Young artists were already coming here on their own, asking for an exhibition room or leaving their works for sale. Today, the house hosts rotating exhibitions by local creators, classes in painting, ceramics, printmaking, photography, and film, as well as lectures, concerts, and creative fairs. The name “incubator” is quite literal here: a person is given a small room, help with a first exhibition, and a chance to test their work with viewers.

The number in the name comes from the garden gate opening onto the uphill approach to St. Lazarus: it bears number ten. The main door of the same house faces another street and bears number three. Beyond gate number ten, artists now do what Chan Wai Fai once went to schools for: they open their own exhibition for the first time and wait not for invitations, but for visitors.