Pictured above is “In Matter and Memory”, 2016, which will be on show at Art Projects Gallery from 25 June

Hong Kong’s public transport system was the source of inspiration for Singaporean artist Sarah Choo Jing’s latest exhibition, Flights of the Mind. The exhibition will be on show at Art Projects Gallery at PMQ from 25 June, and it is the artist’s first in Hong Kong.

A graduate of London’s Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, the artist is widely regarded as one to watch. She works with photography, videography and painting, and her powerful multimedia works have seen her win various awards regionally and internationally.

Multimedia installation “Waiting for the Elevator”, 2014, looked at “the social purposes of … sheltered environments”. This image and others were projected around the Esplanade Tunnel in Singapore

“When Art Projects Gallery invited me to do an exhibition here, I wanted to do a body of work about Hong Kong,” says Choo. Her haunting work focuses on spaces and time and the relationship between them, so it seems quite natural that Hong Kong’s MTR and tram system sparked the idea for this particular show.

“We share common issues in busy cities like London, New York and Hong Kong: it’s about being in transit, starting somewhere and ending up somewhere else,” she says. “The act of traversing through time is not just physical. A lot of times, people leave their bodies mentally.”

Sarah Choo Jing

One of the main pieces in this show is a work titled “In Matter and Memory”. This haunting image is a composite of many different MTR stations, showing everyone from clowns to businessmen gravitating towards a map of the MTR’s stations. “Everyone was facing the map as if it was telling them what to do. They were searching for direction, but not going anywhere,” she says. “Over time, you begin to construct a mental map, a collection of favoured destinations and preferred routes: a labyrinth no other person could ever precisely duplicate nor reproduce. Loneliness, I began to realise, was a populated place: a city in itself.”

Flights of the Mind runs from 25 June to 24 July 2016 at Art Projects Gallery, Unit S510, 5/F, Block A, 35 Aberdeen Street, Central. The gallery is open from 1 to 8pm daily.

Sarah Choo Jing
sarahchoojing.com

Art Projects Gallery
artprojectsgallery.com