Carla Chan Ho-choi

Graduate, School of Creative Media
Julius Bär Next Generation Art Prize 2022

“It’s about stepping out into the unknown, and for me, that was made possible by CityUHK.”

The winner of the Julius Bär Next Generation Art Prize 2022 and a 2009 graduate of the Bachelor of Creative Media (BACM) from the School of Creative Media (SCM), Carla Chan Ho-choi bridges the physical and digital worlds through her artistic practice.

She began as a painter in Hong Kong, drawing and sketching like any other child. Supported by her teachers and family, she decided to pursue art at university. She was on the verge of signing up for a Fine Arts degree but she changed her mind at the last minute. Instead, she opted for SCM.

The defining period during her undergraduate studies at CityUHK was a study trip to the Mojave Desert in California in 2012. Along with other students and faculty from SCM, she created new media art using data collected on temperature, altitude and wind direction at the location sites, including the desert dunes, a dry lake and a canyon.

“This was an inspirational journey for me. We had the opportunity to develop concept-driven art using environmental data and then exhibit our work in Hong Kong,” she says.

While Hong Kong is always home, her next stop is Paris. “I am relocating to France from Germany because I need to stay stimulated by the world around me. That’s the lesson I learned from my experience in the Mojave Desert. Creating art is about curiosity, and finding innovative ways to express new thoughts and ideas. It’s about stepping out into the unknown, and for me, that was made possible by CityUHK.”

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