“Art is not merely a reflection of the world. I believe art has the power to disrupt dominant narratives, unearth hidden histories, and imagine alternative futures. It can offer a form of resistance, creating space for empathy, reflection, and transformation.＂— Issac Chong Wai
Issac Chong Wai at the Venice Biennale 2024 | Image courtesy of the artist and Rachel Jiam
Issac Chong Wai (b.1990, Guangdong, China) is a Berlin-Hong Kong artist using glass, drawing, photography, video and performance to explore social phenomena through the lens of the body, time and the traces they bear. His work transforms the emotions, tensions, and memories from human interactions into performative materiality and immersive experiences. Treading the line between the individual and the collective, Chong examines the vulnerability of the body and the inherent violence within social systems and historical traumas, reimagining alternative microcosms of human relations built on mutual support and understanding.
Issac Chong Wai, Falling Reversely, opening performance at the 60th Venice Biennale, 2024 | Image courtesy of the artist, La Biennale Arte di Venezia and Blindspot Gallery
Chong obtained Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2012 and Master of Fine Arts in Public Art and New Artistic Strategies at Bauhaus-Universität, Weimar, Germany in 2016. Chong is a participating artist in the 60th Venice Biennale (2024) and the 14th Taipei Biennial (2025). His recent solo exhibitions were shown at Städtische Galerie Nordhorn (2025) as part of being selected as Winner of the Art Award of the City of Nordhorn 2024, Liste Art Fair Basel (2023), Museum Schloss Moyland (2023), and Una Boccata d’Arte (Sicily, 2022). Chong’s recent group exhibitions took place at Inside-Out Art Museum (Beijing, 2025), White Rabbit Gallery (Sydney, 2025), Jeonnam Museum of Art (Gwangyang, 2025), Kunsthalle Barmen (Wuppertal, 2024), Bangkok Art Biennale 2024, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin, 2024), ifa-Galerie Stuttgart (2024), the 22nd Biennial of Videobrasil (São Paulo, 2023), Brücke-Museum and Schinkel Pavillon e.V. (Berlin, 2023), daadgalerie (Berlin, 2023), Hamburger Bahnhof–Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart Museum (Berlin, 2023) and among others.
Chong’s artistic journey started from drawing and painting
“My artistic journey began in childhood with a passion for storytelling through drawing and painting.” Chong likes to articulate ideas by drawing and regards “drawing not only as using a pencil to outline a stuffed animal, also as a gaze through which an object, a movement or a feeling maintains its familiar form but is altered.” His work often explores the perception of the body, drawing from personal experience and collective memory. In his early work, Chong sought to explore his queer identity through an understanding of intimacy between people. Equilibrium No. 8 — Boundaries (2012), one of his early drawings, examine intimacy, distance and the human form by creating overlapping spaces.
Installation view of Issac Chong Wai, Equilibrium No. 8 – Boundaries (2012), “Myth Makers-Spectrosynthesis III “, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong, 24 December 2022–10 April 2023| Image courtesy of the artist, South Ho and Tai Kwun Contemporary
The boundaries are marked by charcoals in the performers’ hands. They lie face-down on the floor and are invited to draw the space they can reach on a 23 feet long sheet of paper. The resulting image portrays abstract shapes formed by each individual’s symmetrically balanced traces.
Isaac Chong Wai, Equilibrium No. 8 – Boundaries (2012 / 2014), Performance, KINDL Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, 28 August 2022 | Image courtesy of the artist, Camille Blake and KINDL Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst
Chong’s artistic style has evolved over time. The focus was shifted to the connection between our bodies and our worlds. “My practice has always moved fluidly across media, guided more by the concepts than by a fixed aesthetic… My work continues to evolve in response to shifting personal and social landscapes. While the visual language changes, the core of my practice remains rooted in themes of transformation, resilience, and embodiment.”
His series of “Falling”, from a sculptural piece to a large-scale video installation and performance
“I was interested in looking at the external forces that create the choreography of many fallen individuals in our societies and how falling myself, or “repeatedly” making myself fall could be a way to rehearse in order to prevent or resist dominant powers.” Due to his personally sufferings from violent incidents in Germany, including racial insult and sexual assault, Chong then created a series of works looking into the moments of falling.
Exhibition view of Isaac Chong Wai, Falling Carefully (2020),
“Next Act: Contemporary Art from Hong Kong”, Asia Society Hong Kong, 30 June–27 September 2020 | Image courtesy of the artist, Asia Society, Blindspot Gallery and Zilberman
“Falling carefully” (2020) is a sculptural piece in which Chong created three copies of himself capturing a simultaneous fall. When the sculptures fall at the same time, they get stuck and freeze the moment of falling. “It is impossible to duplicate myself in order to get some help (I wish I could) when dangers come, but it is important to know that I am not an individual who might encounter violence, but someone who can offer help when others are in need.”
Installation view of Issac Chong Wai, Falling Reversely (2021/2024), at the 60th Venice Biennale, 2024 | Image courtesy of the artist, La Biennale Arte di Venezia and Blindspot Gallery
Originally conceived in 2021, “Falling Reversely” (2021/2024) is a multifaceted project, presented through a new large-scale video installation and performance. The exhibition takes place in a 3,000 sq. ft./300m2 space in the Arsenale at the Venice Biennale 2024 and reverses the familiar movements of falling as a thought-provoking response to anti-Asian racism. “Throughout history and noticeably during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us in the Asian diaspora have become targets of violence in public spaces. I wanted to create this work with performers of Asian descent to employ movement as a form of solidarity and resistance.”
Issac Chong Wai, Falling Reversely, opening performance at the 60th Venice Biennale, 2024 | Image courtesy of the artist, La Biennale Arte di Venezia and Blindspot Gallery
“Falling Reversely” confronts its audience with questions of autonomy and power. In conceptualizing this work, Chong visualized how marginalized communities might reclaim their bodies for themselves. In both public and private spaces, attacks against perceived “others” often take place when the aggressors believe they have an inherent right to impose power on a “lesser” group or individual. Cognizant of how marginalized individuals must move through everyday spaces in fear, Chong imagined an alternate future: where those who are marginalized integrate linked movements in their falling, reversing moments of attack and transforming them into new avenues of protest.