What to Let Go?, the sixth annual Para Site International Conference (22–24 November 2018) organised by Hong Kong non-profit art organisation Para Site, took as its theme the tangled issue of heritage. Fittingly, the conference was held in the JC Cube Auditorium in the recently opened Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts, Hong Kong's new public...

The second day of What to Let Go?—Para Site's international conference at Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts in Hong Kong—was largely focused on the subjects of artefacts and repatriation.The day began with a local focus as Tina Pang—M+ curator of Hong Kong visual culture—presented an overview of the institution's...

For Para Site's 2018 edition of its International Conference, titled What to let go? (22–24 November 2018), Hong Kong's longest-running contemporary art space turned its focus to the politics of heritage. Hosted at Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts, and led by Para Site director Cosmin Costinas together with guest curator Inti Guerrero, the...

Expanding on the previous two days' themes of heritage, archives and repatriation, the third and final day of Para Site's international conference at Tai Kwun – Centre for Heritage and Arts in Hong Kong began with an eloquent lecture delivered by artist Pio Abad, whose opening sentiments echoed the previous day's discussion by Marian Pastor Roces...

S.E.A. Focus, the new boutique art fair by STPI – Creative Workshop & Gallery, will take centre stage during this year's Singapore Art Week (19–27 January 2019). Running between 24 and 27 January 2019, 26 galleries will participate in the inaugural edition, showcasing modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art within a pop-up structure in...

A radiographer by training, Ellen Pau is a self-taught artist who emerged from Hong Kong's fledgling contemporary art scene of the late 1980s, when video was a comparatively nascent medium. In 1986, Pau co-founded Videotage—a non-profit organisation that specialises in the promotion and preservation of video and new media art. Pau has an...

Drawn on paper by Oscar Chan Yik Long in gestural black ink strokes, Cupid (2015) greets visitors with a sinister toothy smile as they enter Para Site. The strikingly fearsome figure is positioned on the wall of the gallery's entrance, near one of Chen Dandizi's vertical neon tube lights, part of the series 'Tick Away' (2015), along which a...

From Cao Fei's first large-scale institutional exhibition in Asia, to a showing of historical works by Robert Rauschenberg, Ocula contributor Diana d'Arenberg offers her lowdown of shows to see in Hong Kong this autumn.Cao Fei: A hollow in a world too fullTai Kwun Contemporary, 10 Hollywood Rd, Central8 September 2018–4 January 2019Following on...

Once again, the Hong Kong art machine is gearing up for Art Basel in Hong Kong (29–31 March 2018), now in its sixth edition. With surrounding art fairs like Art Central (27 March–1 April) opening alongside the main event, and an ever-expanding list of exhibitions and happenings taking place, here is a selection of things to see during the...

Looking around Hong Kong, it's not difficult to imagine how the lack of available space may be skewed in favour of private interests, or how any shifts within the city's densely populated infrastructure directly affect artists. Compounding the challenge many artists face in finding spaces where they can create their work is the city's now 20-year...

Disagreements can be at the heart of development. Yet, despite the oversaturation of critical platforms for debate in contemporary art, instigating a disagreement appears to be a sort of pedagogical taboo. How do cultural workers activate tensions in order to ask difficult questions and speak about contested histories? Is there something more...

Afterwork at Para Site19 March to 29 May 2016In a city where the problems and issues facing migrant workers—who make up approximately 4% of the population, and are mainly women—are seldom addressed, and where stories of injustice and tales of domestic-helper abuse by employers have been making headlines in the past couple of...

I was Brainwashed the Friday before Art Basel Hong Kong kicked off. French street artist, Mr. Brainwash, was holding court—to an audience full of Hong Kong society types, complete with bodyguards, and media—with a spray can in a graffiti decorated shell-space in Lan Kwai Fong. It was one of several property developer-artist...

One local gallery manager described it as constipation: Hong Kong holds in its art activities all year before forcing everything out in the week that Art Basel comes to town. The fair alone is like a system of intestines: unraveled, the paths visitors have to walk to see all the works would stretch for kilometers. There is also a huge amount of...

Ten artists, five French and five Chinese, feature in Metamorphosis of the Virtual 5 + 5, an exhibition focused on digital art, curated by David Rosenberg and co-produced by Joanne Kim. The show, which continues until August 31, is organized by K11 Art Foundation (KAF), and its genesis can be traced back to Adrian Cheng, founder of KAF, seeing...