Wong Kit Yi () is a conceptual and performance artist who lives and works between Hong Kong and New York. She is known for her research-based projects, which blend art with science. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions in Hong Kong, New York, China and other countries around the world. Notable venues include P! Gallery, the Elizabeth Foundation, and the Queens Museum in New York; Para Site and a.m. space in Hong Kong; and Surplus Space and ART021 in China.
Early life and education.
Wong was born in Hong Kong in 1983 and raised in the New Territories, a rural region of Hong Kong. She received a BA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she studied traditional ink painting, and an MFA from Yale University, where she studied closely with Jessica Stockholder and Jim Hodges. She currently teaches New Media and Film at the State University of New York at Purchase.
Key concepts.
Wong Kit Yi works through the mediums of video, sculpture, and performance. Exploring biological answers to metaphysical questions, she deals with odd scientific findings and the dysfunctional relationships between what is considered science and pseudoscience. Her contribution to a major exhibition at the Queens Museum in New York included an arrangement of gallery furniture based on the directions of a feng shui master. Her interests include genetics, DNA technology, mythology, Japanese manga, models of ownership/leasing, trade history and the biology of aging and immortality. Wong investigates the dynamics of ownership, working with such ideas as patron collaboration. Rather than selling some of her works, she offers 99-year leases . A series of works she offered at K gallery in New York offered buyers "commissioning contracts" in advance of her participation in the Artist Circle Expeditionary Residency: a journey that took a group of artists on a ship traveling to the North Pole. Each buyer eventually received an artwork Wong produced on the shipped, priced according to a complex formula that took climate change externalities and market forces into consideration. Her recent films are structured in the artist's signature karaoke-inspired sing-along format, switching between documentary and music-video-style content.
Awards.
2012, Susan H. Whedon Award, Yale University.
2006, Cheung's Creative Award, Department of Fine Arts, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
2005, Sovereign Asian Art Prize finalist, Hong Kong.