When the Earth Remembers,
video sculptural installation, 2025
In the video sculptural installation When the Earth Remembers, Chloë Cheuk reimagines a traditional jade pendant passed down through generations into a portal transcending time. Embraced by the sleek elegance of swirling stainless steel forms, the piece symbolises infinity and invites viewers to journey from the past into the future. Drawing inspiration from the textures of jade artefacts of the Palace Museum, the artist breathes life into static images, highlighting the geological and historical significance embedded in the jade. Each artefact serves as a testament to human history, intertwining the legacy of jade with contemporary resonance. The work invites viewers to perceive these antiques anew—not as static relics, but as vibrant narratives that whisper memories and reverberate with the footsteps of those who came before, capturing the heartbeat of history in every curve and texture.
Commissioned by Hong Kong Palace Museum / Producer: YUCOLAB / Digital Advise: Maxime Perreault and Camelia Layach
…Until I am found,
stainless steel, glass, concrete, 2019
This unique viewfinder made of clear globes allows one to pan the city through transforming perspectives. By moving the smallest globular lens nearer to and further away from the largest frontal globe, the reflected cityscape would be altered from an upright but blurry image to an inverted yet clear view. Pacing between clarity and haze, the familiar and the strange, the lines between reality and illusion are blurred, and the physical and virtual world intertwine. This installation is a versatile metaphor for our constant search for direction and belonging, until an external voice resonates with us.
Commissioned by Asia Society Hong Kong Center / Fabricator: Jacky Chu
Waiting For Another Round
four-channel loop video, 6 min, 2014
The work documents the aftermath of Hong Kong’s 2014 Occupy Movement: over 20 days, Cheuk walked and filmed from various bus stops after protest sites were cleared, observing how wheels—those of buses, cars, and other vehicles—gradually erased traces of the occupation. Cheuk uses the wheel as both motif and metaphor: it becomes a symbol of relentless urban forces, but also of temporal continuity and disappearance. Sites once occupied merge, dissolve, reappear, and are reclaimed by vehicular movement.
Through this, Waiting For Another Round offers a meditation on memory, loss, and the cycle of public dissent: the ordinary routine of streets and transport continuing even in the shadow of unrest, speaking to both resilience and erasure.
Restless Reflection
mirror, metal, motor, 2018
Restless Reflection portrays a state of indulgence in self-reflection. Mirror, as a common object plays a metaphor of seeing ourselves, finding ourselves. When the mirror turns automatically at fast speed, the self-standing object loses its own function of reflecting the surrounding people or environment, trying to reflect its own body but in vain. The speed of the mirror that rotates no longer fit in the environment, leaving the solitude.
Please take your time.,
Hourglass, metal, grained tablets, prescripted label on plastic bag, 2017
Please take your time. is an hourglass that a powder form of Wellbutrin XL 300MG tablets that the artist took every day, an anti-depressants type of drugs, replaces the sand. “Please take your time.” was what the artist heard the most from her former partner during their separation. The sand in a fragile hourglass showing the passing time is replaced by the grained medicine the artist took every day to heal her mental illness. Time goes and comes but memory stays so does pain. The medicine is stored in the hourglass, so does the memory.
Long Gone,
3D printed resin, 2019
The work is a 3D-printed transparent telephone suspended from the ceiling. Cheuk intended it to evoke ideas of “unresolved matters, missing answers, and a lack of proper closure.” When communicating with people, and then no longer wanting to have further communications, we just ‘disappear’ by not answering the phone or texts — the transparency of the phone makes it appear as a ghost — it creates a mysterious feeling.
Commissioned by H Queen’s
Attributes
porcelain, metal, 2020
This porcelain helmet is a replica of a safety headgear—an emblem of protection and defiance. By reconstructing it in porcelain, a material both hard and fragile, the work transforms a symbol of resistance into a vessel of vulnerability. The piece was created from a place of witnessing — a quiet response to the movements of resistance in my home. It stands as a tribute to those who confront fear with courage, who insist on freedom even when the cost is high. Porcelain, with its delicate surface and enduring strength after fire, mirrors the human spirit under pressure: brittle, yet unyielding. Through this transformation of material, the work reflects on the tension between protection and exposure, strength and fragility — and the beauty that resides within the act of resistance itself.
Scattering Journey
archival inkjet print, 2018
This series of four scanned images captures the surface of an iPad I found in the library. The act of scanning its screen reveals traces of touch—fingerprints accumulated through use—marking the quiet circulation of human presence on a digital surface. In contrast to the invisible data trails we leave within virtual space, these images disclose the tangible residue of our interactions.
By turning the device outward, from its screen to its skin, the work performs a reversal: a return from the digital to the physical, from the coded to the perceptible. The scan becomes both an imprint and a reflection, suggesting that even within the most virtual architectures, the body persists as evidence of existence.
Stress Test,
fabric, custom electronics, motors, 2022
Formally inspired by both newspaper production lines and gym equipment, a belt of elastic fabric is constantly being pushed and pulled by forces from various angles, emitting a strong sense of tension and anxiety. A closer look would reveal glitchy vocabularies of emotions printed all over the fabric, which points to how daily information overload from news and social media nowadays keeps some people on an emotional roller coaster and even challenges their mental well-being. The artist’s determination to live with the inherent instability of the structure itself parallels her wish that those in adversity gain resilience through stress tests in life.
Commissioned by Tai Kwun Contemporary / Curator: Erin Li / Fabricator: Tung Wing Hong
I am fine, I am good, I am happy,
printer, paper, custom electronics, 2017
The work “I am fine, I am good, I am happy.” is a metaphorical kinetic work that performs a loop of self-statement. The text was pre-printed and the paper was put in a normal printer but the paper will go back again. The whole cycle keeps moving but the printer does not function normally that it plays as a role to roll the paper in and out.
The statement can be read literally but because it is computer font, it does not tell the true emotion behind. The whole work acts as an audio recorder inside our souls. We try telling ourselves to be happy and telling others we are happy. We deceive ourselves until it no longer means anything. While the printer keeps rolling the paper, when time goes by, the paper starts deteriorating after going through the mechanisms again and again. The work also reflects on the difficulty of reading our true emotion under the technology era. We text, we type, but it is hard to tell the true emotions without truly having a face-to-face contact and verbal communication.
Dependence,
Metal, light bulb, cable, 2016 - 2024
Two light bulbs facing side-by-side at the corner of the wall. One has no electricity cable to connect the power and the other has connected to power. The one with electricity brightens up another one. It is a symbol of a relationship that one of them has to rely on another to stay alive.
“Conduction, as in the movement of particles through a medium of transmission in electrical conduction, or the transfer of thermal energy through physical proximity
in the conduction of heat, is a particular metaphor for various forms of engagement, togetherness and intimacy.” - Caoimhiń Mac Giolla
Since We Last Met,
found object, motor, wood, 2019
Two cups and toothbrushes placed next to each other with a little distance. One does not move, and the other one rotates automatically. When the toothbrush moves closer to the other toothbrush, they meet and the bristle of both toothbrushes causes a friction that slows down the movement. The lingering moment is a symbol of the interaction of two people in a relationship. They intimate, they struggle, they conflict, and they separate until they meet again.create tension and relations. Given the personal and intimate objects, the work embodies the tension that comes from the artist and her past lover.
Commissioned by Things That Can Happen / Curator: Chantel Wong, Lee Kit
Hesitation grips me
camera obscura, latex, metal, acrylic, wheels, 2018
Hesitation grips me adapts the optical phenomenon derived from the camera obscura with a structure of dark chamber to depict the condition of hesitant to contact with the outside world. The image of the outside world falls into our eyes through the lens. The changes of the internal structure brings about images that wander between the thin line of blurriness and sharpness, catching and releasing.
Commissioned by Hong Kong Jockey Club and ifva
Expose
Valve, titanium heating coil, linear slide, metal, LDPE tubing, projector , micro controller, video loop: 7 min, 9 sec
Expose is a video kinetic installation. An exposed crowd of unidentified people protesting under the sun is projected on a thin metal rod, which is heated to a very high temperature. When anonymous water from the top drops on people on the rod, it transforms into vapor and disappears, dissolving their souls to the air, without an end.
If the Moment Came
wired glass window, micro controller, wood, projector, solenoid, video loop: 1 min, 3 sec
When I was doing a field recording in Admiralty during the Occupy Movement, I saw a few boys playing kendama near their campsites. I was attracted by the sound when the ball hit the wood handle in a quiet space ( which used to be a central business district) and their concentration. I figured that the trial and errors through practicing kendama is similar to what the students were undergoing to pursue universal suffrage. I linked kendama with an incident in which a window of the Legislative Council was smashed, to represent the two forces. I reposition these two objects to depict my feeling about the spirit of students (kendama) facing the power (wired glass window) which is being used as a metaphor of the authority.
The title If the Moment Came is a conditional phrase which is used for a condition that is unreal. The ball of kendama is thrown up, hit and opens the wired glass window, which soon closes again. Fantasizing about the moment of breaking free from the forces, the ball hits the window persistently, but in vain.
The Burst of Pleasure,
Arduino, Processing, Custom Electronics, Ballons, Needle, Air Compressors, Valves, 2012
The Burst of Pleasure is an electronic installation of a birthday celebration setting centered in the room stands a birthday cake above which a balloon is being inflated slowly. On top of the cake is a candle with a pin in it. As the balloon inflates it nearly touches the pin and then deflates slowly. As tension builds and is released watching the balloon inflate and then deflates, a computerized random setting has been installed to allow the balloon to touch the pin one time a day causing a burst with confetti fireworks. The sudden burst into cheers is like a pleasure released from the pressure, yet at the same time one feels a slight loss and depression after the climax is reached and the longing vanishes. The process of building up the excitement and relief holds the audience’s breath and emotion and serves as a certain art therapy.
Index
2025
When the Earth Remembers
Video Sculptural Installation
If the Moment Came
Wired glass window, micro controller, wood, projector, solenoid, video
2022
Stress Test Fabric, custom electronics, motors
2020
Attributes Porcelain, metal
2019
Long Gone
3D printed resin
Since We Last Met
Found Object, motor, wood
…Until I am found
Stainless steel, glass, concrete
2018
Hesitation grips me
Camera Obscura, latex, metal, acrylic, wheels
Restless Reflection
Mirror, metal, motor
2017
I am fine, I am good, I am happy
Printer, paper, custom electronics
Please take your time
Hourglass, metal, grained tablets, prescripted label on plastic bag
2016 - 2024
Dependence
Metal, light bulb, cable
2014
Waiting For Another Round
Four-channel loop video 6 mins
2012
The Burst of Pleasure
Arduino, Processing, Custom Electronics, Ballons, Needle, Air Compressors, Valves
2015
Expose
Valve, titanium heating coil, linear slide, metal, LDPE tubing, projector , micro controller, video
Scattering Journey
Archival inkjet print