Overview
We are delighted to return to Art Basel Hong Kong with a presentation by Birdhead on Booth 3C49 and a series of knitted installations and performances by Movana Chen in the Encounters section.
Birdhead
We are pleased to present Clorionline City (2025), a new iteration of the Birdhead World Matrix series by the artist collective Birdhead, composed of Shanghai-based Ji Weiyu and Song Tao.
Clorionline City (2025) is an installation of 124 recontextualized photographs taken in Hong Kong over the last decade. In Birdhead World Matrix, each image is visually and sensorially rich, balancing the duality of abstraction and figuration. Clorionline City continues this visual language, presenting a fictional urban scene set against the backdrop of Hong Kong, weaving together reality and imagination across different points in time.
The title of the work is inspired by the bilingual names of many Hong Kong streets, where the English and Cantonese versions often sound alike but carry different meanings. For example, Sycamore Street refers to a type of tree in English, while its Cantonese name, '詩歌舞街 (Sigo - mo - gai)', translates to 'Poetry - Song - Dance - Street.' In creating the title of the new work, Birdhead applied a similar process, first reversing 'Lion Rock,' then transliterating it into Chinese as '克洛 昻徠,' a newly invented phrase that can be read as 'Clorionline' in English. Birdhead employs this neologism 'Clorionline' to refer to the reversed and freely used images in this new installation. Deeply inspired by the artists' experience of Hong Kong, Clorionline City combines colour and monochrome photographs into a single work, balancing abstract structures and figurative content, challenging their coexistence.
(In three parts, 120 x 143 x 8 | 120 x 124 x 8 | 120 x 143 x 8 cm)
Movana Chen
We are delighted to present a series of installations in the Encounters sector by Hong Kong and Lisbon-based artist Movana Chen, including Dreconstructing, Beyond the Surface, and Questioning the Line.
Dreconstructing (2004-2008)
Movana Chen began her practice by forming dresses from her collection of fashion magazines dating back to 1997. Twenty-four of her pieces have been further recontextualized to form the monumental installation Dreconstructing (2004-2008). The outlines of the human form remain visible in seams and circular apertures, now joined into a larger communal body. Rendered illegible through the process, scripts from multiple languages, Chinese, Japanese, English, and Korean, remain visible, reflecting Chen's intention to foster connections across borders.
Beyond the Surface (2024 - ongoing)
"Can we look together, beyond the surface?" asks Movana Chen in her new, evolving work, in which she interweaves the identities of people around the world as one humanity. This question highlights a central pillar of Chen's work: facilitating dialogue and connection across cultures.
Beyond the Surface is a deeply personal exploration of human identity and connection. It begins with Chen collecting expired passports in person from people willing to share them and offer their individual stories. Chen describes this process as representative of "our human need - this pure love, not an identity of paper." She shreds the passports, deconstructing the individual identity, and knits the strands together, intertwined with the passports of others, (re)constructing one large interconnected body.
Questioning the Line (2023 - ongoing)
In Questioning the Line, Chen and a dancer subvert human divisions through performance. Inside Chen's interconnected Body Container, they form a living statue periodically during the exhibition, using movement and stillness to explore human relationships, both with each other and the landscapes they inhabit. Chen has performed this piece in nature and across the world, fostering shared experiences that transcend geopolitical borders, a theme reflected in the maps that serve as the material of the work.
Performances will take place from 12pm & 2pm daily
