Out with AI, In with Human-Made Art: HKForeword Returns

Description

The year is 2026. It’s an era rife with artificial intelligence. Many artworks are created with automated content, where authenticity between human and technology is blurred.

In 10 Chancery Lane Gallery’s 15th edition of HKForeword – New Art from Hong Kong, selected works from 13 emerging Hong Kong talents across installation, painting, photography, sculpture and video. Collectively, their oeuvres d’art trace the rhythms of daily life through moments in the rainy season, discarded building materials and repetitive labour. Through careful transformation, the artists convert these cyclical human experiences into new forms that speak to continuity, loss and renewal.

Curated by Yoyo Yu, HKForeword26 marks a material shift. Most artists have turned toward tangible materials, from found objects to industrial elements traditionally used in construction and building. While their final forms vary widely, the works share a unified intent: to return to the tactile experience and reimagine purpose.

Mixed media artist Kelvin Au’s “Common Ground” assembles used walking sticks from caregivers across Hong Kong, transforming them into a participatory installation that honours unseen labour and imperfect support. With an ardent interest in ancient East Asian art history, commemorative rituals and craftsmanship, Natalie Chu’s “Replica of Ruins: Deserted City” integrates stone pillar ruins with modern materials such as cement, steel and glass, encouraging audiences to fill in the historical gaps with their own interpretations.

Emily Cheung, meanwhile, explores how personal narratives fuse with collective memory within spatial environments. Spanning sculpture, performance and public art intervention, her body of works, “My Souvenir Collection” reinterpret everyday objects, connecting individual stories of migration, loss and belonging to broader geopolitical frameworks. Visual artist Joy Chan grinds architectural waste from Tai Kok Tsui into dust and drags it up a hill in “When the Dust Settles,” a performance video and installation that questions who owns space and how traces disappear into the environment.

Together, these works reassert the hand, body and physical materials are nuclei of creativity in an age of automation.