Set within an old Venetian building opposite the main entrance of the Arsenale, the Hong Kong Collateral Event Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice invites a slowdown amid the 61st Venice Biennale. Curated by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA)Hong Kongs first public art museumthe presentation marks HKMoAs first curatorial undertaking for the Hong Kong exhibition at the Biennale. Comprising five new site-specific installations by Kingsley Ng and Angel Hui, the exhibition aligns with the Venice Biennale 2026 theme In Minor Keys, tracing poetic cadences in ordinary experience and linking Hong Kong with Venice through shared, everyday conditions.
Kingsley Ng: attuning to the overlooked
The fermata begins in the courtyard with Kingsley Ng, an established artist known for multimedia and spatial interventions that turn the familiar ethereal. Evolved from earlier iterations, his three works here map impressions between the two cities. Sometimes, There Are Clouds in Puddles animates mechanically triggered dichroic ribbons that catch sunlight and suggest showers rippling across five turquoise, translucent pools. The piece is inspired by a poem by the late Hong Kong poet Leung Ping-kwan (Yasi), lingering on the fleeting atmosphere of a rainy day.
Indoors, Sky Well arranges soap bubbles within a hemispherical structure drawn from well-like spatial archetypes in Hong Kong and Venice, while a single bulb swings overhead. Reflections multiply on the concave surface, forming an optical play that intimates a cosmos and the passing nature of things. Ngs final installation, Laundry Nocturne (2026), projects the silhouette of a solitary sheet in moonlight, accompanied by field recordings of Hong Kong at nightfrom newspaper printing and sewage treatment to teahouses preparing for the day. Carried into daytime Venice, these sounds salute unseen labour and the quiet upkeep that keeps cities running.
Angel Hui: craft, care, and everyday sanctuaries
Offering a tactile counterpoint, Angel Huis practice leans into material experiment, daily objects, and traditional artistic language. Known for plastic bag embroidery, she debuts in Venice with two installations conceived as one spatial embrace: Drifting Sanctuary and I Would Like to Open a Window for You (2026). In the first room, plastic bags commonly used in Hong Kong for pet fish are embroidered with goldfish using traditional Suzhou technique, drifting above as their shadows ripple across the walls.
Those moving silhouettes lead to a slowly rotating wrought-iron window in the adjoining room. I Would Like to Open a Window for You is ornamented with patterns associated with both Hong Kong and Venice, hand-made by Hui in collaboration with Hong Kong master artisans. As its outline sweeps the rooms, the two installations read as a single, immersive sanctuary where overlooked objects register care and delicate beauty.
Jointly presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC), and jointly organised by the Hong Kong Museum of Art (HKMoA) and the HKADC, Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice is on view in Venice (Campo della Tana, Castello 2126, 30122) through 22 November 2026.
