M+, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong, is delighted to announce a brand-new moving image work by pioneering Hong Kong artist Ellen Pau, co-commissioned with Art Basel. The work, titled The Shape of Light, will be shown on the M+ Facade from Friday, 20 May 2022 until Sunday, 19 June 2022 at 7 to 9pm daily. The project marks the first major collaborative commission for the M+ Facade since M+’s opening in November 2021.
Supported by UBS, Lead Partner of Art Basel, The Shape of Light is a site-specific moving image work made specially for the M+ Facade. Using digitally animated special effects, the video explores the possibilities of the immaterial and the material, transforming light into digital objects. Featuring a popular sutra in Mahayana Buddhism, The Heart Sutra, here expressed through sign language, the ritualistic video meditates on the concept ‘form is emptiness, emptiness is form’. Natural phenomena like fire, water, and light are all rendered in awe-inspiring computer-generated animation.
M+ and Art Basel will present a series of public programmes, including a live durational performance, an artist talk, and an online screening following the debut of The Shape of Light.
Complementing the display of The Shape of Light on M+ Facade, M+ and Art Basel will also present a series of free online and offline events, making the artwork more accessible to the public.
The Shape of Light live performance by Ellen Pau, in collaboration with Amy Chan (lighting designer), Quinn Wong (producer/livecoder), and Paul Yip (sound artist), will offer a space of healing, using sound, light, and digital objects. The drop-in performance will run from 5 to 8pm on Friday, 27 May 2022 at The Forum, M+.
Ellen Pau will be in dialogue with Ulanda Blair about her new work, The Shape of Light at a talk and screening. Attendees will here have the rare opportunity to experience some of Pau’s past works made between 1988 and 2015. The talk will take place from 2 to 3:30pm on Saturday, 28 May 2022 at the M+ Grand Stair, M+.
A four-day online screening from Sunday, 29 May to Wednesday, 1 June 2022 will enable local and international audiences to view a collection of Ellen Pau’s pioneering videos and installations made between 1988 and 2015. Each video will include an audio commentary by Pau, describing the ideas and inspiration behind her work.