The tour will be exploring with you how the artist’s practices about interspecies care and coexistence open an eco-critical space where we can reconsider our more-than-human worlds and futures.
Tour dates: 1/7 (CN & EN), 16/7 (CN & EN), 29/7 (EN), 13/8 (EN), 27/8 (CN & EN), 3/9 (EN)
Mankit Lai is an art and curatorial researcher. His research interests lie primarily in contemporary art, with a focus on ecology, socially engaged practices, and gender issues. Curatorial practices, installations, performances, and photography are his major fields of enquiry. He has worked on exhibitions and research projects at institutions including M+, the Hong Kong Palace Museum, and Asia Society Hong Kong. He received the 2021 Emerging Writer Award from the Journal of Curatorial Studies. In 2018, he was named the Laidlaw scholar, supporting his work on a research project examining gender representations in Chinese propaganda art at the University of Leeds and the University of Hong Kong.
The tour will be taking the books displayed in the exhibition as the points of departure and read Piccinini's artworks against texts by Ni Kuang—the celebrated Hong Kong writer most famous for his sci-fi detective novel series Wisely—in thinking about the cycle of life as well as its dilemmas and contradictions.
Tour dates: 17/6 (CN & EN), 8/7 (CN & EN), 15/7 (CN & EN), 22/7 (CN & EN)
Michelle Lee Ho Wing obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She conceives a framework through archival research and creative practices in imaging and installation art. She also participates in designing museum learning programmes as an artist, and delivers site-specific and interactive learning experiences in museums.
Michelle’s research focuses on the historical space of the library, and the circulation of looted library books. She establishes rhizomatic interpretations that resonate with the original archival materials and social circumstances. She has developed projects for (Trans)Media Painting and Drawing, Zurich University of the Arts (2017); Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2018); Café do Brasil, Para Site, Hong Kong (2019); Waley Galay Art artist in residency open call, Taipei (2022); and To the Ordinary People Walking in Wanhua, Taipei (2022–2023).
The tour will look at Picinini's hyperrealistic chimeras through the lens of Chinese cryptozoology and mythology, namely Shanhaijing or the “Classic of Mountains and Seas”, a compilation of ancient texts that describes a fantastical geography of early China, and features a plethora of mythological creatures.
Tour dates: 3/6 (CN & EN), 10/6 (CN), 11/6 (CN & EN)
Eunice Tsang is a curator/ artist based in Hong Kong. She founded and curates Current Projects, an experimental art space that encourages cross-disciplinary dialogues through exhibition-making. Previously, she set up the Asian Artist Book Library in Tai Kwun Contemporary and is part of the curatorial team at the annual Booked Art Book Fair. Her curatorial interests lie in how artists develop new languages and symbols in times of political change, and how to maneuver the liminal space between legal and illegal, fact and fiction - using magic-realism, sarcasm, humor and myth-making.
The tour will be transforming into an art criticism writing workshop, welcoming audiences from different backgrounds to express their thoughts about the exhibition.
Tour dates: 24/6 (PTH), 29/7 (PTH), 12/8 (PTH), 13/8 (PTH), 19/8 (PTH), 2/9 (PTH), 3/9 (PTH)
Chris Wan Feng is a Hong Kong–based writer and independent curator whose research focuses on the local art ecosystem. His recent exhibitions include A Collection in Two Acts (Rossi & Rossi, 2022), The Dust of a Long Journey (Whitestone, 2022), and Residual Heat (Axel Vervoordt, 2021). In 2023, he initiated Blue Throat, a curatorial programme on Chinese diaspora and displacement.
Chris has contributed to many art journals and other publications, including Artforum and Initium Media. He is also the founder and editor of Daoju, a not-for-profit art writing project with a focus on the Hong Kong contemporary art scene.
The tour will be focusing on the concept of relationship and connection; by interpreting both the chimeras’ and audiences’ bodily postures and movements in the exhibition, she will be leading visitors to reflect on human vulnerability and the warmth of love.
Tour dates: 25/6 (CN & EN), 9/7 (CN & EN), 23/7 (CN & EN), 6/8 (CN & EN), 20/8 (CN & EN)
Ice Wong Kei Suet lives and works in Hong Kong. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Visual Arts from the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, in 2018. By examining her personal experience in time and space, she takes the interconnectedness of nature and humanity as her point of departure, working mainly with performance, installation, video, and drawing. Her recent exhibitions include Women at the End of the World (Art Basel HK x HKBU AVA), Post-Human Narratives— In the name of scientific witchery (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2022), Noble Rot (Para Site, Hong Kong, 2022), and Per. Platform #3 (Per. Platform x Eaton HK, 2022). In 2021–2022, she was awarded a 2046 Fermentation + Fellowships grant by Para Site (Hong Kong). In September 2023, she will begin her Master of Fine Arts at the Zurich University of the Arts.
The tour will be focusing on the notion of “connections”, one of the most important concepts in Piccinini’s oeuvre, linking up the artist’s work with other contemporary artworks that share similar aesthetics and concerns.
Tour dates: 18/6 (CN & EN), 2/7 (CN & EN), 30/7 (CN & EN), 26/8 (CN & EN)
Morgan Wong is an artist and educator. He has lectured at institutions including the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University; Hong Kong Art School; and the Education University of Hong Kong. He currently teaches at Lingnan University. He holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. His research and practice focus on temporality through performance and visual arts. Wong's writings have been published in Artforum, Art Review Asia, The Art Newspaper, and Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art.
Wong's selected solo exhibitions include: Time Isn’t Our Border (Goethe Institute Hong Kong), Our Feet Are Always Younger than Our Heads (Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre), The Dashes; the Laughter; the Reservoirs (Asia Art Center, Taipei), and Filing Down a Steel Bar until a Needle Is Made (Tintype Gallery, London). Wong’s work has also been shown at Media Museum ZKM, Karlsruhe; Tate Modern, London; Seoul Museum of Art; ArtScience Museum, Singapore; and the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei. He was awarded the Asian Cultural Council New York Fellowship in 2019 and the Award for Young Artist (Media Arts) at the 15th Hong Kong Arts Development Awards in 2021. His works are included in the collections of M+ and MILL6 CHAT.
Human will focus on the duality of Piccinini’s grotesque yet cute sculptural works and explore how empathy can be developed to embrace diversity in our society, rethinking our co-existence with each other, with technology, and with nature.
Tour dates: 4/6 (CN & EN), 10/6 (EN), 24/6 (EN), 5/8 (CN & EN), 12/8 (EN), 19/8 (EN), 2/9 (EN)
Human Wu is an architectural designer and educator based in Hong Kong. After working at world-renowned offices in New York, Basel, and Hong Kong, he is now Founding Director of his own practice Human Architects. Human graduated from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and is currently appointed Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. His writing on architecture and art has been published in various magazines including CLOG, San Rocco, MONU, Time+Architecture, Art Plus, Sample, and Dance Journal/HK.
