PORTALS is the final commissioned work of ‘The Embrace and the Passage’, concluding the exhibition’s dialogue on shifting host-guest dynamics. This site-specific performanceinvites audiences to traverse both material and symbolic portals within the space through collective rituals.

Leading up to the performance, the artist hosted workshops in Hong Kong where participants crafted figurines that form a shared, transcendent presence along her own embodiment, Vera Maningning, whose name means ‘the light of truth.’ Clad in white lace—a motif resonant in both Filipino households and Western rituals—she inhabits this figure to embody a spectrum of fluid identities. At the performance, through singing, shapeshifting, and healing practices inspired by pre- and postcolonial Filipino shamanism, she casts the foreign, trans body as a sanctuary of queer struggle and survival, overcomingthe imposed borders of geography and power that continue to shape our world.

Participants are encouraged to bring a personally significant object to join the artist during the performance.

Registration recommended here
(followed by Closing Artist Talk for ‘The Embrace and the Passage’ on 23 Feb 2025)

Venue address: 10B, Wing Wah Industrial Building, Quarry Bay