Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong
Re-enacting the Past, Revealing the Present: The Reality of The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head
Hong Kong artist duo Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong will discuss their short film The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head (2023), which re-enacts a 1970s photograph by Kim Ki-Chan (1938–2005) depicting women carrying basins in an alley near Seoul Station. Through a durational performance, the film explores the intersection of historical memory, gendered labour, and urban life. This work is an extension of their long-term photo series He was lost yesterday and we found him today (since 2010), which initially critiques the blind spots of conventional photographic representation. The artists further reflect on André Bazin’s theory of cinematic realism, using it as a lens to interpret the film’s exploration of reality and representation.
Central to the film’s examination of historical memory is the intergenerational dialogue between the performer—Park So Young, whose personal history is embedded in contemporary Korean society—and the historical past represented in the photograph. Her engagement with the past goes beyond mere re-enactment; it becomes a reflective dialogue between herself and the women from over 50 years ago. This incorporation of the performer’s own story, shaped by her family and upbringing, deepens the film’s exploration of memory as both a personal and collective construct.
The film’s durational close-ups, focused on the performer’s physical endurance, highlight the connection between the contemporary gaze, physical labour, and memory. As the performer struggles to maintain her pose, her visible shaking manifests the weight of time, echoing the burden of history. In contrast, the final zoom-out shot, which exposes the studio’s equipment, disrupts the immersive experience, forcing the viewer to confront the constructed nature of the re-enactment and the tension between historical representation and lived experience.
This presentation explores how The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head critiques the politics of historical representation and rethinks the conventions of historical re-enactment. By balancing embodied experience with mediated history, the film challenges how memory is shaped and reshaped by personal identity and broader socio-cultural forces.
BIOs
Leung Chi Wo (b. 1968, Hong Kong) and Sara Wong (b. 1968, Hong Kong) have collaborated since 1992. Leung and Wong co-founded the art centre Para Site in Hong Kong in 1996 and graduated with master’s degrees from the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the School of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, respectively, in 1997. From 1999 to 2000, they participated in a residency in New York with fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The duo has exhibited in biennales/triennales in Shanghai (2000), Venice (2001), Echigo-Tsumari (2018) and Aichi (2019) and was featured in the Hong Kong Visual Art Centre (2000), the São Paulo Museu da Imagem e do Som (2008), the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (2010), the Shanghai Center of Photography (2015), the National Museum of Singapore (2018) and the SCAD Museum of Art (2023). They were artists-in-residence at the Delfina Foundation, London (2021) and the Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice (2023)
ARTWORK [10]
The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head, 2023
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Re-enacting the Past, Revealing the Present: The Reality of The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head
Hong Kong artist duo Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong will discuss their short film The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head (2023), which re-enacts a 1970s photograph by Kim Ki-Chan (1938–2005) depicting women carrying basins in an alley near Seoul Station. Through a durational performance, the film explores the intersection of historical memory, gendered labour, and urban life. This work is an extension of their long-term photo series He was lost yesterday and we found him today (since 2010), which initially critiques the blind spots of conventional photographic representation. The artists further reflect on André Bazin’s theory of cinematic realism, using it as a lens to interpret the film’s exploration of reality and representation.
Central to the film’s examination of historical memory is the intergenerational dialogue between the performer—Park So Young, whose personal history is embedded in contemporary Korean society—and the historical past represented in the photograph. Her engagement with the past goes beyond mere re-enactment; it becomes a reflective dialogue between herself and the women from over 50 years ago. This incorporation of the performer’s own story, shaped by her family and upbringing, deepens the film’s exploration of memory as both a personal and collective construct.
The film’s durational close-ups, focused on the performer’s physical endurance, highlight the connection between the contemporary gaze, physical labour, and memory. As the performer struggles to maintain her pose, her visible shaking manifests the weight of time, echoing the burden of history. In contrast, the final zoom-out shot, which exposes the studio’s equipment, disrupts the immersive experience, forcing the viewer to confront the constructed nature of the re-enactment and the tension between historical representation and lived experience.
This presentation explores how The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head critiques the politics of historical representation and rethinks the conventions of historical re-enactment. By balancing embodied experience with mediated history, the film challenges how memory is shaped and reshaped by personal identity and broader socio-cultural forces.
BIOs
Leung Chi Wo (b. 1968, Hong Kong) and Sara Wong (b. 1968, Hong Kong) have collaborated since 1992. Leung and Wong co-founded the art centre Para Site in Hong Kong in 1996 and graduated with master’s degrees from the Department of Fine Arts at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the School of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong, respectively, in 1997. From 1999 to 2000, they participated in a residency in New York with fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council. The duo has exhibited in biennales/triennales in Shanghai (2000), Venice (2001), Echigo-Tsumari (2018) and Aichi (2019) and was featured in the Hong Kong Visual Art Centre (2000), the São Paulo Museu da Imagem e do Som (2008), the Hong Kong Heritage Museum (2010), the Shanghai Center of Photography (2015), the National Museum of Singapore (2018) and the SCAD Museum of Art (2023). They were artists-in-residence at the Delfina Foundation, London (2021) and the Emily Harvey Foundation, Venice (2023)
ARTWORK [10]
The Woman Carrying A Basin Over Her Head, 2023
<< previous | next >>