HONG KONG.- Art Central and its lead partner, UOB, announce today details of its creative programme ahead of its milestone tenth edition. Curated by Aaditya Sathish, the Fair’s programming champions daring new perspectives to celebrate transnational narratives. Programming highlights include a newly commissioned large-scale installation by Hong Kong artist Nadim Abbas, Performances and Lecture-performances, and an extensive Video Art programme. Art Central will be held from 26 to 30 March 2025, with VIP Preview on 25 March, at its signature Central Harbourfront location, and is financially supported by the Mega Arts and Cultural Events Fund under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government.

Presenting a diverse range of artistic expressions through its engaging programme, Art Central cements its position as a cornerstone event of Hong Kong Art Week and a significant force in fostering the art ecosystem. The Fair spotlights an emerging generation of Asian artists while presenting well-established voices in the industry through performances, lecture-performances and talks in its dedicated Central Theatre. The Fair will bring crucial conversations and dialogue on art discourses to the global stage. These programmes sit alongside the Fair’s gallery presentations, which will feature over 100 galleries and 500 artists from more than 40 countries and territories across the globe, making it a must-visit event during the city’s annual celebration of the arts.

The Video Art programme will feature a curated selection of works from the Akeroyd Collection, the moving image facet of the collection of Shane Akeroyd, a Hong Kong-based philanthropist and moving-image champion. Presented for one hour each day of the Fair, visitors can experience an exclusive showing of moving image-based works at Cinema Central. The Akeroyd Collection operates to make the film and video work in the collection available through a dedicated website, film screenings, and loans to international arts institutions.

MAJOR LARGE-SCALE INSTALLATION BY HONG KONG ARTIST NADIM ABBAS

Art Central has commissioned local artist Nadim Abbas (b. 1980, Hong Kong) to create a large-scale artwork to be unveiled at the Fair’s 2025 edition. Titled A Brazen Rift (After Branzi) (2025), the installation is inspired and modelled after architectural drawings created by the Italian architect and designer Andrea Branzi, whose unrealised drawings became proposals for alternatives to urban life as we know it. At the heart of Abbas’s two-decade-long practice is an interrogation of the image in an age of omnipresence. Using modular forms, Abbas frees, interrogates and reworks Branzi’s two-dimensional visions into complex set pieces, breathing new life into their ambitious and cellular-like structures.

The expansive installation draws parallels between the movement of people in densely populated urban centres and the kinetic energy of crowds within an art fair, inviting visitors to immerse in a liminal environment. The newly commissioned work underscores the Fair's commitment to Hong Kong art and celebrates the innovative spirit of an acclaimed mid-career artist.

VIDEO ART

Art Central’s Video Art programme explores a diverse range of moving image works, offering a platform for leading artists to present video art at Cinema Central, a dedicated video theatre showcasing works in this medium. Under the curation of Aaditya Sathish, the Fair’s Video Art programme, titled “On the Shores of…", will be an exploration of the ways in which today's diverse networks facilitate access to people and information while simultaneously creating an alternative sphere where new worlds can be found. This platform empowers artists and researchers to challenge hegemonic narratives, responding with a speculative eye on the horizon to guide viewers to new shores of logic, reason, and understanding.

Highlights include:

• Shu Lea Cheang (b. 1954, Tainan) presents Virus Becoming (2022). A renowned artist and filmmaker regarded as a pioneering figure in Internet-based art, whose multimedia approach is at the interface between film, video, installation, software interaction and durational performance. Cheang’s works explore issues that are in a state of constant flux, including racial relations, the ecological impact of humans, the ethics of biotechnology, and sexual politics.

• Kary Kwok (b. 1964, Hong Kong) presents You Don’t Know Me, But… (1998). Working between photography, installation and fashion, Kwok’s artworks have engaged with the perceptions and demands put on marginalised bodies and subjectivities by normative society.

• Raqs Media Collective (est. 1992, New Delhi) presents The Bicyclist Who Fell Into a Time-Cone (2023). The collective practices a ‘kinetic contemplation’, a restless and energetic entanglement with the world and time. The work oscillates between fact and fiction, investigating the increasing prevalence of video imagery and its resultant parallax sensory disjunction, which evokes the sensation of time both standing still and spiralling out of control.

• Riar Rizaldi (b. 1990, Bandung) presents Mirage – Eigenstate (2024). An artist and filmmaker whose artistic practice focuses on the relationship between technology, labour, nature, worldviews, genre cinema and the possibilities of theoretical fiction. Recently premiered at Gasworks (London), the work weaves together analogous investigations into the nature of reality, positioning Western science as just one methodology among many in a constellation of pluralistic worldviews.

PERFORMANCE & LECTURE-PERFORMANCE PROGRAMME

The Fair unveils a compelling new model for its Performance programme with the introduction of Lecture-performance – an art form which focuses on research-based performances carried out through a combination of text, imagery and movement – to be presented throughout each day in the Fair’s Central Theatre. The programme, titled “In Search of the Miraculous” after Dutch artist Bas Jan Ader’s final unfinished work, assembles artists who approach history, materials, and the body with resonant gestures grounded in seeking. These artists engage in playful experimentation with their inherited contexts and invite audiences into open, generative spaces of play.

Highlights include:

• Charmaine Poh (b. 1990, Singapore) presents in the shadow of the cosmic (2023). Featuring an avatar in dialogue with vocal clones, anime characters and 3D influencers within a vast digital constellation, Poh’s lecture-performance traces a technological lineage from the East Asian economic miracle of the 1980s and '90s, coupled with the advent of techno-orientalism, positing that digital representations of the East Asian femme body emerged from the confluence of these historical flows.

• Xiaoshi Qin (b. 1989, Guangzhou) presents The Landscape Between Us II (2022). Qin’s lecture-performance intricately weaves personal memories and historical reflections through a series of encounters with nature, spanning from the mountains of Nansha to ancient legends and contemporary experiences. Qin engages deeply with themes of memory, loss, and the nuanced relationship between humanity and the landscape, reflecting on mankind's enduring pursuit of understanding and belonging.

• IV Chan (b. 1978, Hong Kong) presents Our Birthdays (uncut) (2025). In her newly commissioned piece for Art Central 2025, Chan draws from the campy formalism of B-Movies, delving into the horror genre to examine the dual figures of the vampire and the mother in Chinese cinema. Chan’s performance articulates the profound entanglement of queerness with the legacies of horror.

• Hou Lam Tsui & Wong Pak Hang (b. 1997, Hong Kong / b. 1995, Hong Kong) presents Reaching This Point is the Limit (2025). Inspired by their visit to a Sham Shui Po mall teeming with old CCD cameras and DV camcorders, the artists revisit personal memories through the lens of outdated, malfunctioning, low-pixel electronic devices. Their work endeavours to assemble the fragmented threads of past, present, and future while contemplating the notion of death within a digital context.

• Shavonne Wong (b. 1991, Singapore) presents Talking to Machines: When AI Becomes More Than a Tool (2025). Wong’s performance, conceived as a social experiment, centres on Eva, an AI companion designed to catalyse discussions about our relationships and emotions in an increasingly AI-integrated world. Through Instagram interactions and real-time conversations, Eva prompts a deeper contemplation of the emotional complexities and ethical implications associated with artificial intelligence.

Aaditya Sathish, Curator, said, “The driving force behind this year's Art Central programme is a critical need to address the current state of the world while simultaneously envisioning its potential transformations. The artists selected these programmes all explore this central theme, embodying an almost messianic presence by highlighting the intersection of transnational and personal experiences.”

Corey Andrew Barr, Fair Director of Art Central, said, “Art Central’s esteemed curated initiatives have consistently celebrated practices that encapsulate the vitality, originality, and pioneering spirit defining the forefront of Asia’s contemporary art landscape. Under the direction of Aaditya Sathish, we are pleased to present an exceptional creative programme this year, aimed at inspiring fresh insights and facilitating meaningful dialogues among audiences, while showcasing the diverse dynamism and extensive depth of art practices throughout the Asia-Pacific region and beyond.”