ART BASEL IN HONG KONG 2021

Under the siege of a global pandemic, people have been forced into recalibrating their everyday routines according to the new abnormal, coming to terms with the social distance that no longer stays concealed, and with isolation in strictly confined spaces. To galvanise thought in the functioning of mechanisms, the booth is turned into a hospital consulting room, where a lighter that relentless emits bright light is confined. The medical screens made of party flags adopt an air of festivity to substitute the daily paleness. The mechanical scales at the booth entrance that serve as speed bumps produce mechanical sounds as the crowds move past by, while the numbers on the scales become completely irrelevant. Doubt, angst, and dread echo the sounds in the air, with a lingering sense of déjà vu that dominates all societies and countries across the world. Each disarray of electrical cables depicted in the drawings on the wall seems to morph into its own organic shape, snarled or unraveling, while in fact, it is the same electrical cable that entangles itself in the same loop over and over again. The light box is engulfed by the artist’s own signatures written repeatedly until what was legible becomes an utter blackness, a metaphor for a futile attempt to break out of the system.