{"id":573830,"date":"2026-08-03T20:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T20:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/573830\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T20:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T20:26:12","slug":"ellen-paus-elegy-to-a-vanishing-hong-kong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/573830\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellen Pau\u2019s Elegy to a Vanishing Hong Kong"},"content":{"rendered":"

Art Review<\/a><\/p>\n

In the video art pioneer’s first US exhibition, water\u2019s changing states become a metaphor for the city. <\/p>\n


\n \"Gladys
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

\"Ellen
\n Installation view of Ellen Pau: She Moves (photo courtesy the author)<\/p>\n

Drops of water trickle down a plain white wall under a heavenly light in Ellen Pau\u2019s 1988 video installation \u201cShe Moves \u5979\u53bb.\u201d Flanked by soft white veils and a nostalgic, wooden armchair, the work introduces water as a central motif in Pau\u2019s long-standing interest in Hong Kong as a city in constant transition, moving through cycles of lost and found.<\/p>\n

Ellen Pau: She Moves<\/a> at SculptureCenter, curated by Freya Chou and designed by technical director Rain Chan, is the first United States survey exhibition of the woman widely regarded as Hong Kong\u2019s video art pioneer. Across 15 videos and installations spanning the late 1980s to the present, water reappears in various forms: a crying wall, swimmers diving into Victoria Harbour, the scent of tear gas. Its changing states, from melting ice to evaporating mist, become a metaphor for Hong Kong herself \u2014 \u201calways on the verge of disappearing,\u201d as late cultural theorist Ackbar Abbas puts it<\/a> \u2014 leaving little time for reflection before new changes arrive.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s rapid transformation is reflected in the afterlife of \u201cShe Moves.\u201d Over the years, the work has been transferred across formats \u2014 NTSC to PAL, VHS to DVD \u2014 remastered, and, most recently, restored with AI. With each iteration, something is lost, and something new is layered in. That state of flux is mirrored by the installation, an intimate space that invites viewers to take a seat, temporarily occupying the position of an absent subject. Who is the \u201cshe\u201d in the title? Could it be Pau herself, who once rested in that very chair in her home; the woman in a floral dress, who appears briefly on screen; the visitors who enter and exit the space; or even Hong Kong herself?<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of Ellen Pau, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone \u5187\u82b1 \u5187\u5047” (2026), mixed media installation with multi-channel generative sound, video, acrylic, plywood box, wax, and objects (used candles, films, print on plates) (photo Charles Benton, courtesy SculptureCenter)<\/p>\n

Upon entering the underground, labyrinthine corridor, visitors encounter a work from Pau\u2019s ongoing, multisensory Fl0ra Zero series (2016\u2013ongoing), \u201cWhere Have All the Flowers Gone \u5187\u82b1 \u5187\u5047\u201d (2026). It starts with burnt candles attached to the wall, collected by Pau and her friends over the years from the June 4 vigils commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests<\/a>. On the opposite side, strips of film negatives hang from a rack, bearing ghostly silhouettes of these candles, preserving the outline of what once was. Translated into photographic images, the candles\u2019 shifting forms draw a parallel to the making and preservation of historical records \u2014 just as light fixes a passing moment onto film, archives preserve ephemeral experiences as material records that outlast their original time. Close to the floor lie flesh-like lumps of melted wax, remnants of \u201cSpectre of the Will\u201d (2019), a single-channel video installation in which an infrared camera captured visitors standing before a heated wall, translating their body temperature into live heat maps. The surrounding wax slowly melted in response to the increasing energy, recalling the blood, sweat, and lives spent in collective resistance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The smell of burnt bark and chemicals fills the air \u2014 intermittently released into the corridor is \u201cSublime,\u201d a fragrance developed by Pau with scent specialist Xavier Tseng to recreate the smell of tear gas. Visitors may find their eyes watering as they move through the space, momentarily inhabiting the danger and vulnerability of participating in public protests. It\u2019s a direct reference to recent protests in Hong Kong, where tear gas deployed by the police against protesters became sensory evidence of state violence and the suppression of civic expression.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Installation view of Ellen Pau, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone \u5187\u82b1 \u5187\u5047” (2026), mixed media installation with multi-channel generative sound, video, acrylic, plywood box, wax, and objects (used candles, films, print on plates) (photo Charles Benton, courtesy SculptureCenter)<\/p>\n

Near the end of the tunnel, a holographic flame burns atop a bloodstained-looking structure resembling the torch of the Goddess of Democracy, a symbol during the Tiananmen Square protests. As viewers approach the work, motion sensors activate, switching the video feed from crackling fire to footage of burning film strips. On one hand, the work references the traditional Chinese practice of burning offerings for the dead; on the other, it comments on the altering and erasure of public records, both elegy and critique.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration<\/a> set the terms for Hong Kong\u2019s 1997 handover, questions around identity and autonomy have loomed over the consciousness of every local. In \u201cShe Moves,\u201d Vera Lynn\u2019s 1939 wartime anthem \u201cWe\u2019ll Meet Again\u201d plays, alluding to recent protests and migration waves in Hong Kong that split families and communities. Originally written for lovers separated by war, its promise of reunion captures the hope that, as Pau put it in her recent artist talk at the Asia Art Archives in New York, Hong Kongers will all meet again on a bright sunny day.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Left: Detail of Ellen Pau, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone \u5187\u82b1 \u5187\u5047” (2026), mixed media installation with multi-channel generative sound, video, acrylic, plywood box, wax, and objects (used candles, films, print on plates); right: Ellen Pau, “Diversion \u5169\u982d\u5514\u5230\u5cb8” (1990), 4K video (AI-upscaled; color, sound) (both photos Charles Benton, courtesy SculptureCenter)<\/p>\n

Ellen Pau: She Moves<\/a>\u00a0continues at SculptureCenter (44-19 Purves Street, Long Island City, Queens) through August 16. The exhibition was curated by Freya Chou. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art Review In the video art pioneer’s first US exhibition, water\u2019s changing states become a metaphor for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-573830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}