Artist Christopher K. Ho reflects on identity, the meaning of home and the nature of the nation state
- Christopher K. Ho, US-raised but born in Hong Kong, uses a mock-up of a Cathay Pacific airliner cabin to explore ideas about identity and reverse migration
- The artist’s newest project, a response to rising nationalism, explores the idea of a multiverse as a model for nation states with diverse populations
Finding acceptance in a different country is something artist Christopher K. Ho can relate to. The 46-year-old was born in Hong Kong and moved to the United States when he was four. The issues of belonging and identity run through his work, and are more relevant than ever in a world, and a city, that have become increasingly polarised.
Since Donald Trump was elected US president in November 2016, Ho has been spending a lot more time in Hong Kong. While he loves the city and considers it home (though he also spends time in Colorado and New York), the transition has not been seamless.
“I was seriously experimenting with moving back to Hong Kong, and was committed to the idea,” Ho recalls, “but ... I’ve always felt I had to earn my belonging.”
The way he sees it, every Hong Kong native has to appear more British or more Chinese depending on who they are interacting with.
Ho created CX888 for his 2018 summer residency at de Sarthe Gallery in Wong Chuk Hang. It explored identity in the context of the Asian diaspora and reverse migration. CX888, the daily Cathay Pacific flight between Vancouver and Hong Kong, was the one the artist would take to come back to the city.
The work was adapted for, and is on view at, the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing until the end of this month as part of “Meditations in an Emergency”, an exhibition that, having opened in the midst of a pandemic and political uncertainty, explores the sources of global anxiety and its immediate effects.
