Supported by
2021 / Colour / 342 minutes / Dialogue in Cantonese with English and Chinese Subtitles
Everyone's Sick is the latest larger-scale video series by the artist Wong Wai Yin. Wong expands her artwork of the same name, first shown in her 2016 solo exhibition Without Trying., from 3 interview videos to 20, documenting covert, lesser-told thoughts and ideas on being an artist, on the art world, artworks and art-making, among others.
In 2016, Wong tried to confront her fear and anxiety. She took some courses where she had no confidence and knowledge at all, one of which was a course called Spiritual Response Therapy (SRT). Using a pendulum and some charts, this New Age therapy revealed that Wong had a blockage in her career: she had problems with “success”, fearing and avoiding success. According to the SRT system of knowledge, the world is all interconnected as a whole; thus when Wong solves part of her problem, the whole world can be less problematic as well.
Wong has taken the impact of SRT to her heart; she decided to conduct SRT sessions with her fellow artist friends who have issues with their professional career in one way or another.
From 2016 to 2019, Wong invited 20 artists, writers and educators in the art world to talk about their growth, struggles and situation. Using the SRT technique, Wong found some keywords to start the conversation, such as Self-limitation, Power, Gender, Procrastination, among others. Each conversation is triggered by a specific keyword, where the dialogue unfolds around the art practitioner and their concerns. In the videos all interviewees are pixelated with their voices distorted, while the interviewer or the artist’s presence is completely eliminated.