ART CENTRAL 2026 CREATIVE PROGRAMME PROBES INDELIBLE EFFECTS OF DIGITAL CULTURE ON ART
Curated By Zoie Yung, The Programme Unfolds Through Installation, Moving-Image, Performance, And On-Site Dialogues Hong Kong Artist Kaitlyn Hau To Debut Large-Scale Commissioned Installation Exploring The Intersections Of Art, Technology, And Embodied Experience Central Stage Spotlight To Honour Three Globally Acclaimed Artists—Arahmaiani, Esther Mahlangu, And Arno Rafael Minkkinen HONG KONG, March 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Art Central, together with Lead Partner UOB, announce today details of its creative programme ahead of the Fair's eleventh edition. Curated by Zoie Yung, the programme examines the frictions and intimacies that shape contemporary social and virtual life, foregrounding emergent Asian voices alongside influential practitioners shaping the region's cultural landscape. A cornerstone of Hong Kong Art Month, Art Central 2026 will be held from 25 to 29 March, with a VIP Preview on 24 March, at its iconic Central Harbourfront location. Art Central 2026 is financially supported by the Mega Arts and Cultural Event Fund under the Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. Kaitlyn Hau, 'Polishing the Bloom' scene visual demo still from Recursive Feedback Ritual 0.01, 2026. Realtime computational sculpture, 715 × 830 × 300 cm. Courtesy of the artist. ANNOUNCEMENTS Kaitlyn Hau will present the Art Central 2026 Hong Kong Commission, Recursive Feedback Ritual 0.01 (2026), a large-scale installation and motion‑capture performance. The Fair's Video Art programme, 'Reading the Room', features a focused selection of regional and international moving-image works that trace the tensions between human intuition and algorithmic reasoning, exploring how AI and other emerging technologies have reframed the emotional signals intrinsic to our communication. 'Endless Night and Midnight Sun' features four commissioned performances that examine how the compressed temporalities of contemporary life manifest through metamorphic bodies, behaviours, and social relations. Central Stage introduces its final featured artists — Arahmaiani, Esther Mahlangu, and Arno Rafael Minkkinen — rounding out a group of six artists at the Fair whose influential practices command growing international and institutional recognition. The 2026 Talks Programme convenes practitioners working at the intersections of contemporary art and technology, spanning from conversations on music videos as a medium for radical experimentation to the development of local art‑tech and new media practices. HONG KONG ARTIST COMMISSIONArt Central has commissioned new media artist Kaitlyn Hau (b. 1999, Hong Kong) to realise a large‑scale installation for the Fair's 2026 edition. Titled Recursive Feedback Ritual 0.01 (2026), the commission extends Hau's ongoing inquiry into the emotional, perceptual, and technological dimensions of digital embodiment. As an artistic director and visual engineer for virtual-singer performance, Hau has developed a distinctive methodology of "selective inclusion", using micro‑gestures such as subtle shifts of breath, posture, and movement to heighten the affective presence of her digital personas. Unfolding as an expansive installation, Recursive Feedback Ritual 0.01 transforms Hau's compulsive self‑regulation into a real‑time computational sculpture. Motion‑capture-driven visuals loop through a recursive feedback system, rendering the artist's psychiatric symptoms as measurable cycles of repetition and dissociation. The work reclaims bodily agency within a curated aesthetic structure—transforming autonomous internal "invaders" into a generative vocabulary of movement and image. PERFORMANCEPresented daily in the Fair's Central Theatre, the performance programme 'Endless Night and Midnight Sun' turns to the altered temporalities of the AI era, drawing on the extreme cycles of light and darkness in polar regions as a metaphor for our shifting sense of duration. Through a series of commissioned works, the programme reflects on how compressed time reshapes social instinct, emotional endurance, and the rhythms through which we move together in contemporary life. Jiaming Liao (b. 1992, Guangdong) presents IYKYK (ON AIR) (2026). Appearing in his signature muscle suit, Liao stages a hybrid virtual‑physical performance realised by motion‑tracking animation, where audiences are invited to "transform" his body through interactive participation. Blurring the line between artistic consumption and creation, the work foregrounds how beauty and masculinity are culturally constructed amid intensified commercialisation and technological mediation. Chaklam Ng (b. 1984, Hong Kong) presents Shadow Work (2026), a sound performance that fuses physical gesture with object manipulation and electronic modulation. Through percussive activation, the installation generates a feedback loop of multi‑choral electronic responses, staging an ephemeral dialogue between the body and its digital echo. Isabella Isabella (b. 1986, Hong Kong) presents I see blood in the sky today. (2026). The work explores the concept of "teleproximality," imagining the child as an external limb and their absence as a hollowed imprint within the parent's body. Moving through a series of textural suits, the artist stages a body in transition, each shift articulating new configurations of intimacy and care. Susie Au (b. 1962, Hong Kong) presents Memory In Motion – Walk-In-Cinema (2026), transforming the Fair's Central Theatre into a surreal corridor of memory constructed from cardboard boxes. As audiences navigate the space alongside performers, they encounter looping projections drawn from Au's music video archive and daily visual notes, allowing latent recollections to be reassembled into new sensory narratives. VIDEO ARTChampioning the breadth of contemporary moving‑image practices from the region and beyond, the Fair's 2026 programme of Video Art, 'Reading the Room', turns toward the subtleties of human interaction and the labour of meaning-making. Observing how artificial intelligence routinely processes vast datasets yet struggles to apprehend nuance, subtext, and tone, the programme reframes this technological shortfall as an analogue for the misalignments inherent in everyday communication, foregrounding the tensions, hesitations, and emotional undercurrents that contour our attempts to understand one another. Highlights include: Liang‑Jung Chen (b. Taipei) presents UK Indefinite Leave to Remain Application Fee (2025). This screen‑recording of a YouTube performance adopts the format of a live fundraising campaign, transforming a colour‑coded Google Sheet into a site of resilience that documents the artist's efforts to secure the legal fees required for a UK permanent residency application. Chen renders private financial struggle as public data, illuminating the structural pressures that shape migrant experience. Yifan Jiang (b. 1994, Tianjin) presents One Sunday Morning (2021). Jiang hand-draws magical-realist fables that probe the limits of communication and human connection. The animated video work imagines a parallel universe in which humanity abruptly loses language. Through the encounter of two characters from opposite sides of the world, Jiang examines empathy, estrangement, and how understanding is formed. Jon Rafman (b. 1981, Montreal) presents Cloudy Heart – Strawberry Moon (2025). Operating at the intersection of video art and digital subcultures, Rafman's work centres on an AI‑generated bedroom-pop star whose 'e-girl' persona unfolds across social media feeds, music, and algorithmic aesthetics. The project probes the uncanny space where artificial consciousness acquires human messiness, reflecting on desire and loneliness born of life online. Adrian Wong (b. 1980, Chicago) presents With Love from Hong Kong (Episode 1) (2025) and With Hate from Hong Kong (2025), a two‑part inquiry where personal narrative meets the pulp conventions of Western and Eastern screen cultures. With Love draws on Wong's grandmother's fascination with American soap operas to stage scripted vignettes of her migrant life; With Hate reactivates the rapid‑assembly production tactics of 1960s kung fu studios, sutured with newly choreographed stunt sequences. Together, the works invert familiar narrative tropes, centring female protagonists endowed with agency and exaggerated physical prowess. TALKSArt Central's Talks Programme brings together some of the most engaging voices in contemporary art today for a series of thought‑provoking conversations. Presented throughout the week, the programme offers visitors distinct opportunities to hear directly from artists, curators, and industry leaders. Highlights include: 'MV as an Art Form', in conversation with Susie Au (film/MV director) and Halftalk (MV director). Renowned for their work with prominent Cantopop artists, the duo discusses the narrative and artistic strategies that shape their music‑video direction and the medium's evolution as a site for radical experimentation amid accelerating technological change. 'Anchor Point—Art Central 2026 Hong Kong Artist Commission', in conversation with Kaitlyn Hau (artist), Inti Guerrero (curator/educator), and Ashley Lee Wong (Co-Founder and Artistic Director, MetaObjects). Taking motion tracking as both a technical anchor and a metaphor for hoW\ Hong\ Kong artists negotiate their positionality within global contexts, the trio discusses Hau's generative practice, her ACG (Anime, Comic, and Games) influences, and her translation of "exhaustion" into an aesthetic form central to her practice. 'Art Tech—Rethinking the Contemporary Art Ecology', in conversation with media artists Samuel Yip, Keith Lam, and Ng Tsz-Kwan. The speakers will reflect on their role in shaping the local art tech landscape and examine the infrastructural conditions required to sustain its continued development. Zoie Yung, Curator, said, "This year's creative programme reflects the criticality and nuance of the questions artists are asking in this present moment—how we communicate across misalignment, how technology reshapes embodiment, and how shifting temporalities recalibrate our social instincts. With a focused, multi-disciplinary framework, we aim to bring forward practices that speak directly to the material and perceptual conditions of Hong Kong and Asia today." CENTRAL STAGEArt Central announces presentations by Arahmaiani, Esther Mahlangu, and Arno Rafael Minkkinen as part of its Central Stage feature, joining the previously announced SIDE CORE, Elnaz Javani, and Marta Frėjutė. Central Stage spotlights six artists whose practices have garnered recent institutional recognition, including participation in major international exhibitions and recurring large‑scale shows, as well as significant public commissions, acquisitions and awards. Presented under the curatorial direction of Enoch Cheng, Central Stage is among the Fair's curated gallery features. Yogyakarta-based artist Arahmaiani is a seminal figure in Indonesian contemporary art. Since the 1980s, her practice has grappled with contemporary politics, gendered power inequalities, and cultural commodification through performance, installation, and community‑based collaboration. Arahmaiani has exhibited widely at major institutions and biennials, including Tate Modern (London), the Brooklyn Museum (New York), the National Gallery Singapore, the Istanbul Biennial, the Gwangju Biennale, and documenta fifteen (Kassel). Born and based in Mpumalanga, South Africa, Esther Mahlangu is celebrated for her bold geometric abstractions rooted in Ndebele cultural knowledge. Painting across an expansive range of surfaces, her practice reanimates ancestral visual systems within contemporary art and design. Dr. Mahlangu has exhibited internationally at major institutions, including the British Museum (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Born in Helsinki and based in Massachusetts, Arno Rafael Minkkinen is known for black‑and‑white self‑portraits that investigate the relationship between the human body and the natural world. His images draw on intuition, chance, and physical risk as integral elements of his process. In 2025, Minkkinen was named the recipient of the Académie des Beaux-Arts Photography Award, William Klein. His work has entered the permanent collections of MoMA (New York), the National Gallery of Finland (Helsinki), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. Corey Andrew Barr, Fair Director, said, "Art Central has established itself as a discursive platform where experimental voices from Hong Kong and across Asia gain meaningful visibility and resonance. This year's creative programme spotlights practitioners advancing new conceptual and technological frontiers, inviting audiences to engage with the emergent vocabularies shaping contemporary new‑media practice. It is our privilege to support work that not only reflects the region's cultural vitality but also contributes to its ongoing transformation." Advance Tickets end 24 March, 11:59 PM HKT. Visitors are encouraged to book online in advance at artcentralhongkong.com/tickets/ Opening Dates and Hours Tuesday 24 March VIP Preview (by invitation) Wednesday 25 March Fair Hours 12 pm – 5 pm Night Central 5 pm – 9 pm Thursday 26 March Fair Hours 12 pm – 7 pm Friday 27 March Fair Hours 12 pm – 7 pm Saturday 28 March Fair Hours 11 am – 7 pm Sunday 29 March Fair Hours 11 am – 5 pm VenueCentral Harbourfront Hong Kong, 9 Lung Wo Road www.artcentralhongkong.com Facebook: artcentralhk | Instagram: @artcentralhk |WeChat Public Platform: artcentral | Xiaohongshu: ArtCentralHK #ArtCentralHK #ArtCentralUOB #HongKongArtWeek For media enquiries, please contact:Chance Communications[Mandy Chan | mandy@chancecomm.com | 2509 3123][Tommy Yuen | tommy@chancecomm.com | 2509 3389] About Art CentralArt Central, a cornerstone event of Hong Kong Art Month, presents the next generation of talent from Asia's most forward-thinking galleries alongside celebrated artists from across the globe. Since its inaugural edition in 2015, Art Central has established itself as a leading platform for innovation in contemporary art, advancing the profiles of artists and galleries and reinforcing their presence within the international art landscape. Today, the Fair is recognised for the strength of its curatorial programming and as a vital meeting point for discovery and exchange among collectors and curators representing private, corporate, and institutional collections worldwide. Fair DirectorCorey Andrew Barr joined Art Central as Fair Director in 2019. A champion of Hong Kong artists, Barr has expanded the Fair's platform to highlight local talent and underscore its position as a benchmark for aspiring galleries from around the world. He was formerly the director of a prominent Hong Kong- and London-based gallery focusing on contemporary Asian art, and prior to that, served as Specialist and Head of Sales for Phillips in New York, where he also organised exhibitions of contemporary art, photography, and design by leading international artists. CuratorZoie Yung, currently based in Hong Kong, is an independent exhibition consultant and curator, and former exhibition manager of chi K11 art museum in Shanghai. She provides a unique approach to exhibition production by combining practice in exhibition spatial arrangement and her knowledge of Chinese Xuanxue as well as Western astrology. Selected recent exhibitions include Wonder-verse (chi K11 art space, Hong Kong, 2022) and Curve of Buoyancy (Duddell's, Hong Kong, 2021). She also actively organises public education campaigns; she has collaborated with local organisations, including Tai Kwun Contemporary, Para Site, 1a Space, and Hong Kong Visual Arts Centre. Enoch Cheng is an artist-curator whose work spans curation, moving image, installation, performance, dance, and fashion. His cross-disciplinary multimedia practice reinterprets norms, stories, and myths through contemporary lenses, drawing on a range of creative practices and engaging audiences through diverse cultural traditions. Cheng was awarded the Asian Cultural Council Fellowship (2020) and held artist residencies at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2022), and the American Museum of Natural History, New York (2020). He was most recently named Artist of the Year (Visual Arts) at the 2025 Hong Kong Arts Development Awards, recognising his contributions to the arts, including his role at Art Central since 2024. About UOBUOB is a leading bank in Asia. Operating through its head office in Singapore and banking subsidiaries in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, UOB has a global network of more than 470 branches and offices in 19 markets in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America. Since its incorporation in 1935, UOB has grown organically and through a series of strategic acquisitions. Today, UOB is rated among the world's top banks: Aa1 by Moody's Investors Service and AA- by both S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings. For nine decades, UOB has adopted a customer-centric approach to create long-term value by staying relevant through its enterprising spirit and doing right by its customers. UOB is focused on building the future of ASEAN – for the people and businesses within, and connecting with, ASEAN. The Bank connects businesses to opportunities in the region with its unparalleled regional footprint and leverages data and insights to innovate and create personalised banking experiences and solutions catering to each customer's unique needs and evolving preferences. UOB is also committed to helping businesses forge a sustainable future, by fostering social inclusiveness, creating positive environmental impact and pursuing economic progress. UOB believes in being a responsible financial services provider and is steadfast in its support of art, social development of children and education, doing right by its communities and stakeholders. About Mega Arts and Cultural Events (ACE) FundThe Culture, Sports and Tourism Bureau of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government sets up the Mega ACE Fund to attract and support international or large-scale arts and cultural events which bring significant arts, cultural or economic values and can be recurrent and anchored in Hong Kong, or events which can bring exceptionally significant arts or cultural merit, as well as publicity and image building values to Hong Kong as an arts and cultural hub with a view to contributing to Hong Kong's development into an arts and cultural metropolis as well as a tourist destination, providing development opportunities for the arts, cultural and creative sectors, and facilitating arts and cultural exchange.
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