Webcast: The Art of Falling

A Conversation With Artist Isaac Chong Wai

The exhibition Next Act: Contemporary Art from Hong Kong at the Asia Society Hong Kong Center features research-driven works by 10 young, local artists that respond to their city’s shared history and its citizens’ collective memories.

Isaac Chong Wai is one of the artists, displaying the multimedia presentation Falling Carefully. Chong examines what happens when we fall and attempts to radically transform the feeling of powerlessness – a condition most of us believe we cannot escape. The sculptural work focuses on the body and body postures asking: What and who might make us fall?

In a conversation with Nick Yu, development manager at Blindspot Gallery, Isaac Chong Wai discusses his inspiration, research, and how his second home in Berlin influenced his work.

This webcast was co-hosted by Asia Society Hong Kong and part of the series Art over Lunch.

Isaac Chong Wai (b. 1990, Guangdong province, China) is a multimedia artist based in Berlin and Hong Kong. He graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University with a BA in Visual Arts in 2012, and the Bauhaus-Universität in Weimar, Germany, with a MFA in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies in 2016.  Chong works with a diverse range of media, including performance, site-specific installation, public art, video, photography and multimedia.

Influenced by personal events and global phenomena, he engages themes of collectivism and individualism, politics of time and space, border, migration, war, identity politics, LGBTQ, public sphere and human rights. His recent solo exhibition includes Chapter A: The Rehearsal of the Futures (Apartment der Kunst, Munich, Germany, 2018),  Chapter B: An Artistic Archive of Borders (Kunstraum München, Munich, Germany, 2018), and What is the future in the past? And what is the past in the future? (Bauhaus Museum, Weimar, Germany, 2016). In 2018, Chong was commissioned by M+ to produce the performance work  Rehearsal of the Futures: Police Training Exercises. Picture: © Innsbruck International Mia Maria Knoll

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Nick Yu manages and plans exhibitions at Blindspot Gallery, as well as other special projects. He previously held the position of research and curatorial fellow at Slought Foundation, Philadelphia. In addition, he is also an art writer and a curator. He contributes regularly to Art Asia Pacific and has recently curated exhibitions such as Bad Bodies (Eaton, Hong Kong, 2019), Holy Mosses (Blindspot Gallery, 2019), and Play and Loop II (Blindspot Gallery, 2020).

About Art over Lunch

Art over Lunch is a monthly event series for members of Asia Society Switzerland. Each time, we visit an exhibition or a special part of a collection with artists, curators and experts for 45 minutes followed by a small lunch. The tours are designed to give members a different view on the vast troves at the museums and galleries in the city of Zurich and provide an opportunity to mingle and discuss.

Art over Lunch is made possible with the support of Bergos Berenberg.