Presented in partnership with Yale-China Association

Ely Center of Contemporary Art’s Lunarfest exhibition Hong Kong in Poor Images presents artworks that picture the cityscape, people, and ordinary life of Hong Kong. In recent decades, leading artists of the Hong Kong contemporary art scene have explored themes that visualize the vernacular culture of the region. The intended “poor” representation through digital images reinforces these artists’ insistence on exploring the intensity, hybridity, and fluidity of Hong Kong everyday life, thus shaping a disruptive force of idea and emotion within the mainstream commercial and institutional system of Hong Kong art scene.

Curated by ZENG Hong, 2020 Yale-China Arts Fellow, Hong Kong in Poor Images, explores Hong Kong’s contemporary art scene through themes that visualize the vernacular culture of the region. The intended “poor” representation through digital images reinforces these artists’ insistence on exploring the intensity, hybridity, and fluidity of the city’s everyday life, thus shaping a disruptive force of idea and emotion within the mainstream commercial and institutional systems.

ECOCA will be open during the Lunarfest festivities organized by Yale-China Association and neighboring organizations offering arts and cultural programs for adults and children throughout the city of New Haven.

ZENG Hong is an academic, curator, and art critic based in Hong Kong. She received a M.A. in Cinema Studies and a Ph.D. in Visual Art Studies. Her research interests lie in contemporary art in Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta region in China, as well as gender politics in film. She is a part-time lecturer at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, and the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her publications include academic article in refereed journal Asian Cinema, and critiques in Art World Magazine, HK01 and Stand News. She is the curator and exhibition producer of Blown Away—Art, Science and Extreme Weather (Tai Kwun, 2019). She is involved as one of the art practitioners of Art Readers, as well as one of the selected emerging art professionals of Para Site in 2018.