Chan Ka Kiu
Hong Kong

Born in Canada and based in Hong Kong, multimedia artist Chan Ka Kiu concluded her recent three-month residency at De Sarthe Gallery with a solo exhibition titled “Late to the Party.” Dealing with the anxieties of aging, Chan referenced the infamous “27 Club” (a list of musicians and artists who died at 27) as the impetus for the exhibition. Here, Chan’s video installation Back & Forth & Back (2023), which uses found and AI-generated footage, narrates the journey of an AI horse’s afterlife as it travels from heaven to hell—a tongue-in-cheek reference to the visuals in Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1490–1500). In a sardonic response to the exhibition’s concept and mimicking the fountain in Bosch’s painting, her installation Happy Birthday (2023) featured a fountain-like inflated ball pit filled with life-sized sex dolls. Religious, poetic, and witty, there was also a hint of melancholy behind the almost laughable, monotonic narrations in her videos.