Ellen Pau: Luminosity

Luminosity features a sign language performance of the Heart Sutra, a foundational Buddhist text. Ellen Pau uses motion capture technology to digitise the performer’s movements, transforming them into traces of light that slowly emerge and dissolve. The work embodies the sutra’s central theme of emptiness, an essential concept in Buddhism that relates to impermanence, non-dualistic thinking, and the nature of existence. The artist intends it to act as a beacon of hope in challenging times, offering a moment of peace and contemplation within our ever-changing world.

Ellen Pau (b. 1961, Hong Kong) aims to raise our awareness of our physical presence and inspire contemplation of what it means to be, to exist, here and now, and beyond that, the space each of us occupies. Pau became one of the earliest pioneering video artists in Hong Kong. Beyond artistic creation, she has also been a leader in the promotion, curation, and education of art and culture in Hong Kong, through the founding of several important initiatives, including the city’s oldest video artist collective and archive for media art, Videotage (1986). Pau also founded Microwave International New Media Arts Festival in 1996. Her works have been exhibited locally and worldwide in film festivals and art exhibitions. In 2001, Recycling Cinema, one of her most significant video installations, was presented at the Hong Kong Pavilion in the 49th Venice Biennale.

Art at the Stair is an exhibition series that showcases moving image works from the M+ Collection and on loan. Presented at the Grand Stair, the exhibitions feature a variety of artistic approaches seen in both historical and contemporary works that connect with ongoing exhibitions in the museum.