Hong Kong artists bring goldfish- and laundry-inspired art to Venice Biennale 2026

Hui’s installations are intended to showcase the beauty of quotidian life in Hong Kong. The windows further carry another layer of cross-cultural meaning: as visitors look out of these windows onto the streets of Venice, it is as if they’re traversing between the two cities. What’s more, she says, “The windows also symbolise home. Each visitor’s background is different. As they experience Venice and this Hong Kong artwork through their personal lens, they create a form of dialogue,” she says.

Ng, meanwhile, is inspired by laundry. Since 2003, he has attended several editions of the biennale and spent time in Venice for research and sightseeing purposes. “What fascinated me the most was ordinary residents hanging clothes in the streets every day,” he says. “It’s such a simple, beautiful composition of colour, size, texture and form. It’s like an accidental collective art installation that happens 365 days a year—and that deeply moved me.”

He was reminded of Hong Kong’s old housing estates, where strings of colourful laundry looked like bunting. “That everyday beauty connects both cities, so my proposal grew from that point. The work will explore light and shadow, threads and patterns intertwining,” he says. “My piece is a tribute to daily life, like in 1960s and 70s art history notions, where cleaning a museum floor could itself be art.” He is referring to American feminist and conceptual artist Mierle Laderman Ukeles, who developed the concept of maintenance art in 1969. She took the everyday, repetitive actions of cleaning and recontextualised them as a gallery performance, her aim being to elevate the mundane, invisible upkeep tasks required for an art institution to function, often performed by women.

Ng’s piece has nothing to do with gender but with “honouring the poetry in ordinary maintenance”. The media artist, known for his site-specific, conceptual pieces, will take a more abstract approach than Hui and create an installation of hanging clothes and fabric. As they flutter in the breeze, they will create what he calls “subtle, intangible sensations”. “I want visitors to experience the beautifully shifting shapes and shades of the shadows in the wind,” he says.

Ng’s and Hui’s installations were conceived and created separately, but they believe there is a connection between them. “Both our creations feature the element of light and shadows and showcase cultural memories of Hong Kong,” Ng says. “Angel’s windows connect our works. It’s like the rays of light created by my installation pass through her windows to interact with the shadows in her space, while visitors in her space can also look through the windows to see my work. There’s this fun interaction between our work.” At the time of writing in late January, the two were also planning to add bubble elements to both pieces to reinforce the connection: the sound of bubbles bursting will feature in the background soundtrack in Hui’s space, while Ng’s laundry concept will be underlined by the frothy sound of washing clothes.

Ng and Hui were selected to represent Hong Kong at the Venice Biennale from a pool of about 200 candidates. The Hong Kong Pavilion is organised by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA) and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council this year. HKMoA director Maria Mok explains there was a rigorous selection process, and the two ultimately stood out for proposals that best interpreted the biennale’s theme, In Minor Keys, and the Hong Kong Pavilion’s subtheme, Fermata—named after the musical symbol that tells performers to pause, or hold a note longer than its normal duration.

“Musically, a minor key is softer than a major key,” says Mok. “Our two artists embodied that sense of pause beautifully in their proposals.” Ng adds, “It’s a curatorial framework that invites quieter reflections. It’s a shift away from the grand and the loud. It reminds us to notice the small, everyday efforts of people—even those washing clothes every day. In a world full of dramatic events, how can we return our attention to the simplest acts? Laundry, for instance, at its core is an act of care. If every one of us has even the smallest sense of respect or gratitude for people [performing such work], the world could feel different.”

Since Hong Kong made its debut at the biennale in 2001, the pavilion has featured both group and solo shows. But Mok says she was less concerned about how many artists to involve than how best to tell the stories of the city. “Their proposals reflected the pulse and fragments of everyday life, and the two chosen artists complement each other perfectly. They’re truly an ideal match.”

Both artists have long celebrated the small details even in the most mundane subjects. Hui graduated with a degree in fine art at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2014 and then material studies at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2017. In Beijing, she started experimenting with textures and she started reinterpreting traditional art in contemporary ways and with different materials. Her first major work, which established her reputation, was her final-year project: tissues painted with blue-and-white porcelain patterns, a playful, modern twist on Chinese blue-and-white ceramics. “I spent months on those delicate patterns on tissues. At home, I spread hundreds of them out to dry,” she recalls with a laugh. “My family became so worried about using any tissues at home in case they were ‘art’. Now, whenever they see my work humorously mixing daily objects, they ask, ‘Can we touch this?’ It’s a nice interaction between life and art.”

She went on to expand the concept to create porcelain pieces which are either painted with contemporary, fun images, such as a plate painted with a portrait of Van Gogh wearing a facemask during the pandemic; or crafted in the shape of handbags, telephones and, at last year’s Affordable Art Fair, where she had a booth made to look like an old-style grocery store, White Rabbit sweets, Chupa Chup lollipops and vintage Vita Soy milk bottles.

“That’s what I love: highlighting things people usually overlook and turning them into the protagonists on a stage,” she says. “We borrow from history and reinterpret it. Even when I use blue-and-white motifs typical of Chinese porcelain art, I’m not replicating porcelain; I’m combining found objects to create new meaning. That’s the spirit of contemporary art—spirited, youthful, dynamic.”

Ng’s path to becoming an artist is also rooted in the ordinary. “My love of art started with my grandfather. He used to call everything he did in life ‘the art of living’: the art of eating well, of driving, of everyday acts. Back then, I didn’t understand what he was saying.” It wasn’t until secondary school, when he learnt about different eras of art history, that he realised all artists share one thing in common: art is a means for both artists and viewers to understand life and the human condition in a deeper sense.

He gives as an example avant-garde composer John Cage’s 1952 piece 4’33”—it instructs the musician to sit for four and a half minutes and not play a single note, the goal being to encourage the audience to listen to their surroundings and foster a connection between art and the world. “Art is not only a work of art but a way of life,” he says. “It’s a practice of perception, of staying open to the world. I hope to keep learning how to see through art—it’s a lifelong study.”

He also believes participating in festivals such as the Venice Biennale can help artists achieve this goal and grow their exposure. Ng, who also teaches at Hong Kong Baptist University’s Academy of Visual Arts, is pleased to see that the city’s art students these days have more opportunities to see the world than he did. “Many Hong Kong artists study abroad, then return with new perspectives. That flow of ideas keeps the scene dynamic and cosmopolitan,” he says.

The pair will be joined by representatives from the museum when they set off to Venice to install their artworks next month. “I see this as only the beginning,” says Mok. “HKMoA is Hong Kong’s first public art museum. Our role is to build a community where we support one another and grow together. It’s not about one or two artists, but the whole Hong Kong art system. I hope, together and in the editions to come, we form this through art.”

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