RUNDOWN

15:50    Registration and mingle
16:00    Start of Members’ Guided Tour
17:00    End of Members’ Guided Tour

Follow Asia Society Hong Kong Center on a curator guided tour of Para Site’s latest exhibition, Strange Strangers.

About the Exhibition

Para Site is delighted to present ‘Strange Strangers’ as the second exhibition in its new tenth-floor annex. The duo exhibition curated by Cusson Cheng will showcase commissioned and existing sculptures by New York-based Chinese artist Shuyi Cao and Hong Kong artist Leelee Chan.

Taking the concept of ‘strange strangers’, which philosopher and ecologist Timothy Morton defines as ambiguous beings that study and challenge the paradox and fissures of identity, the two artists trace the flows and formative processes of matter to envision a queer ecology where one may relate to a collective of beings in a planetary approach. Cao’s stoneware, glass, and resin works unravel intimacies and kinships across a myriad networked life forms, summoning ontologies that wander between substances, residues, and impurities. Meanwhile, Chan’s enigmatic sculptures incorporate and transform urban detritus, ancient artefacts, as well as natural and industrial material to accentuate the in-becoming nature of materials and to experiment with logic and patterns beyond an anthropocentric worldview.

About the artists

Leelee Chan (b. 1984, Hong Kong; lives and works in Hong Kong) makes enigmatic sculptures that incorporate urban debris, ancient artefacts, natural materials, and industrial products, generating visual paradoxes in which these objects move seamlessly between past, present, and future. Reflecting the shifting urban fabric in her immediate surroundings in Hong Kong, Chan's sculptures undergo an elaborate transformation through tactile experimentation with materials and processes. The artist pushes the limits of her objects' physicality and expands the possibilities of the language of abstraction. In 2020, Chan was the recipient of the ninth BMW Art Journey. She’s participated in exhibitions including at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021, 2018); Para Site, Hong Kong (2021); Skulpturen Park Köln, Cologne (2020); and UCCA Dune, Beidaihe (2019). Chan's work is in the permanent collections of M+, Hong Kong; Skulpturen Park Köln, Cologne; and Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and San Francisco. Chan received her MFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BFA from the School of Art Institute of Chicago.

The practice of Shuyi Cao (b. 1990, Guangzhou; lives and works in New York) explores alchemical approaches to object making and knowledge osmosis. Through archeological speculation and ecological fiction, she contemplates the plurality of relations between technoscience, mythology, and cosmology. Her multi-medium installations synthesise various organic and inorganic materials, and natural and artificial processes. Combining hand-crafted and digital artefacts, moving images, and sounds, the assemblages suggest heterogeneous material temporalities. She has exhibited internationally including at NARS Art Foundation, New York (2021); Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2021); and MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2018). She is the recipient of the Today Art Museum Wang Shikuo Nomination Award, The New School Tishman Environment and Design Center Research Grant, and MASS MoCA’s Assets for Artists Grant. She is an assistant professor at Pratt Institute and adjunct faculty at Parsons School of Design. She received her MFA from Parsons School of Design, New York, and her MPA and LLB from Fudan University, Shanghai.

Program Partner

Scan the QR Code or Click the link below to register

https://tinyurl.com/3dukkack

For more enquiries, please contact 2103 9503

or email [email protected]

 The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and participants and, unless expressly stated to the contrary, do not reflect the opinion, position, or official policy of Asia Society Hong Kong, its members, or its committees. Asia Society Hong Kong does not endorse or approve, and assumes no responsibility for the content of the information presented.