Cover A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
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‘Squid Game’ choreographer Kim Cha-I and multidisciplinary artist Kim Ayoung, both Korean admirers of Hong Kong action cinema, have unveiled their sci-fi video artwork ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025) on the M+ Façade this month.
Hong Kong’s dense cityscape has long fuelled the imagination of cyberpunk cinema—from Blade Runner (1982) to Ghost in the Shell (1995). Now, this futuristic collaboration lights up the city’s iconic harbour skyline, its shifting reflections merging with the metropolis’s neon glow. The video, set against wet pavements shimmering like mirrors, depicts a delivery woman weaving through narrow, rain-soaked alleyways at breakneck speed—her reflection forming a kaleidoscopic double that blurs the line between dancer and machine.
This sci-fi video art piece, co-created by Kim Ayoung and choreographer Kim Cha-I, uses motion capture, 3D game engines and AI-generated imagery to narrate a speculative fiction about hyper-mobility and bodily optimisation. Part of Kim Ayoung’s ongoing Delivery Dancer series (since 2022), Dancer in the Mirror Field envisions a competition run by a delivery platform to find the worker with the most “optimised” movements. On show at M+ until December 28, the installation transforms Hong Kong’s skyline into a living screen for digital dystopia.
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Above A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
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The concept, says the artist, originated during the pandemic through her fascination with food delivery riders—figures of speed and invisibility. “They put the food boxes in front of the door and ran away. They are the most mobile and fastest entities on the road. We don’t know who they are or where they navigate—they’re almost invisible,” she shared during a talk at M+ earlier this month.
After interviewing a delivery rider and shadowing their routine, she decided to centre her new work on these largely unseen labourers. When M+ and Australia’s Powerhouse Museum co-commissioned the video, she saw the opportunity to visualise this research. “It reflects my study of the gig economy and gig labour,” she says. “People must be acutely aware of their speed and body condition to remain productive. Productivity, measured by time and speed, is the ultimate value in a neoliberal society—especially in countries like [South] Korea. I’m sure Hong Kong is the same.”
This competitiveness also frames her commentary on K-pop, which she describes as a “winner-takes-all system, a survival game, a type of neoliberal structure”. She adds: “My work hints at the extreme competition among dancers and riders who must achieve the highest speed and productivity.”
Above A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
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But Dancer in the Mirror Field extends its challenge beyond labour—it confronts the portrayal of women in action. The film’s protagonist, Ernest Mo, is a female delivery rider who encounters three versions of herself across timelines, each fighting to survive in a zero-sum contest. For the choreographed action scenes, Ayoung turned to Kim Cha-I, whose Emmy-winning choreography for Squid Game redefined the physical language of vulnerability and power on screen.
The industry has no shortage of female action heroes—from Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow (2021) in the Marvel Universe, Wonder Woman (2017) in DC, and the John Wick franchise’s new spin-off Ballerina (2025), to Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Ziyi in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Yet Kim Ayoung believes “it’s still not enough”. By insisting that her lead be female—and by entrusting choreography to another woman—she seeks to champion female agency in both art and film.
“For me,” says Kim Cha-I, “whenever two female protagonists fight, it’s an eye-opening experience. You expect raw power when men battle, but when women channel that same energy, it’s astonishing—unexpectedly powerful, like opening a box full of surprises.”
Above A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
A still from ‘Dancer in the Mirror Field’ (2025), a video art installation commissioned by M+ and Powerhouse, presented by Julius Baer (Image: courtesy of M+)
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Beyond gender, the video art piece taps into what the artist calls “Asia Futurism”—an effort to reclaim the narrative of the future from Western techno-orientalist tropes. She notes that Hong Kong has often been used in Hollywood as a backdrop for exotic futures, where Asian characters remain peripheral. “I confess that I used to be attracted to those Western depictions of [Hong Kong] because they so beautifully depicted neon lights and this nightscape, and there were so many mysteries, layer by layer,” she says. But as she grew up, she questioned why Asian figures were rarely the protagonists. “They appeared as backdrops or died early in the story.” With Dancer in the Mirror Field, she wants to reimagine the Asian future from Asians’ own perspective.
To achieve this, she incorporated elements from local research—the bamboo scaffolding, wet streets, and even the neon sign of Sammy’s Kitchen from the M+ collection—combining them into a visually rich, fictional but recognisably Hong Kong world.
Dancer in the Mirror Field is both mirror and manifesto: reflecting the city’s lights while refracting its complexities. Through its fluid interplay of dance, technology and identity, it positions women—and Asia itself—at the luminous edge of a newly imagined future.
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
