Visitants to Lunar Factory summarises Guangzhou-based artist collective BOLOHO’s activity over their six-month residency at CHAT in 2024. As their first institutional solo exhibition in Hong Kong, it culminates their co-creative efforts in CHAT’s community programme Seed to Textile.

BOLOHO draws inspiration from their recent research on huaqiao nongchang (overseas Chinese farms) and the diverse plants that thrived there. In Guangzhou and Hong Kong over spring, BOLOHO collaborated with ‘Seeders’ formed by local students to nurture six plants commonly found in overseas Chinese farms. They made natural dyes with the harvests and invited the public to participate in dyeing and collaging fabrics in summer. Using the results of the workshops, BOLOHO produced the video work Visitants to Lunar Factory, which is presented with other collaborative artworks in this exhibition.

Venue address: CHAT/MILL6 Foundation, The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan

Asia is home to rich textile traditions. Its textile art is generally seen as an applied art, and textile artists are often equated with weavers, tailors or knitters. However, Asian artists increasingly turn to textiles to honour traditional craftsmanship while addressing historical narratives and current global urgencies, such as pollution and waste, pioneering a new dimension of textile art.

The ANTEPRIMA x CHAT Contemporary Textile Art Prize aims to encourage and promote artists with Asian connections who offer new insights into textile materials, techniques and history. In the inaugural edition, eight curators from different countries who have a deep understanding of Asian contemporary art nominated four artists each. An international jury of five esteemed members then selected eight finalists based on five criteria: potential, originality, skill, idea and methodology. The jury judged the finalists’ works on site and announced the winner on 29 November. During the exhibition, visitors are also invited to vote for their favourite artwork in the Audience Prize.

Presented in partnership with ANTEPRIMA, this exhibition showcases the works of the finalists and celebrates the expressive power and intrinsic significance of textiles. We hope the one-of-a-kind prize will stimulate artistic talents and create future possibilities of textiles.

Media artist Kingsley Ng interprets the history and characteristics of his exhibition sites, creating contemplative, meditative experiences through poetic and minimalist interventions that involve sound, light, image and kinetic installations. Theatrical or ephemeral in nature, his works are completed through the audience's interactions, such as touching and even meditating within the artwork's space while recalling the memory embedded in the venue.

In this exhibition, Listen to the Sound of the Earth Spinning, Ng draws on the textile heritage and new meanings tied to The Mills, where CHAT is housed. The Mills, once the spinning factory complex of Nan Fung Textiles, is now known as a pet-friendly cultural hub. In the newly commissioned artwork Globes, Ng uses textile materials and tools to evoke imagination about the Earth that transcends anthropocentrism through the presence of animal companions.

Venue address: MILL6 Foundation The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan

To explore the intrinsic relationship between textiles and the environment, CHAT launched the community programme Seed to Textile in 2019, which has since been tracing textile manufacturing to its origin through planting and art making. In this year's programme, Guangzhou-based artist collective BOLOHO leads a six-month participatory art project that delves into the interactions between nature and the intricate cultural landscape in urban farming.

BOLOHO has initiated research and creative works on state-owned huaqiao nongchang (overseas Chinese farms), which were established to accommodate returned overseas Chinese between the 1950s and China's reform and opening up, examining the farms' deep connection with immigrant communities in Hong Kong.

Venue address: MILL6 Foundation The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan

Does heritage only serve to record a bygone era and feed the nostalgia of those living in changing times? How can we collectively learn from the past and forge a better future?

In spring 2024, CHAT celebrates its 5th anniversary with the group exhibition Factory of Tomorrow. Featuring CHAT’s own contemporary art collection and newly commissioned works, it endeavours to critically examine the past and evoke imagination for what is to come. From textile works and sculptures to immersive installations and videos, it brings together creations by 19 artists and collectives of Asian backgrounds, reflecting their takes on textile technology and materials, diversity, climate change and our future.

Venue address: 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T.

In Winter Programme 2023, CHAT hosts the solo exhibition of acclaimed Thai contemporary artist, Jakkai Siributr. The exhibition offers a retrospective of Siributr’s artistic practice spanning two decades, featuring wall-hanging and sculptural pieces, as well as an ongoing workshop for refugees in Thailand. The exhibition presents a stimulating commentary on the pressing contemporary issues in Thailand and abroad.

The exhibition starts with his early textile piece, Untitled(2005), which presents the genealogy of textile/fibre art established through a separation from textile craft. Since then, he has proactively created the works with embroidery, patchwork and quilting to make critical commentaries on abusive power in Thai society and draw attention to unheard voices.

When the COVID-19 global pandemic broke out in 2020, Siributr created textile pieces like Yellow Fever and White Plague which depict the racist attacks and discriminations that the pandemic exposed, but also proactively used his art to alleviate the situation by supporting workers who have been made redundant due to the pandemic. For the exhibition at CHAT, Siributr has created new works using uniforms worn by people in Hong Kong who also suffered a negative impact on their livelihood due to the pandemic.

Venue address: The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T.

With the Sun, She Quells the Night – A Tribute to Rebecca Pan is dedicated to the Hong Kong cultural pioneer whose career spans across entertainment, music and art, and who continues to inspire emerging talents today. Conceived in close collaboration with the artist herself, the exhibition rejuvenates archival materials through a variety of display methods and combines the historical material with the contemporary art of today. Together, the integrated exhibition experience places into dialogue the past and the present, Rebecca and us.

From young girl to self-assured star, impressionable entertainer to original artist, daughter to mother – each turn of the exhibition presents a defining moment of transformation in Rebecca’s multi-dimensional life. We begin with her formative years in 1930s Shanghai, arrival to Hong Kong in the 1940s, international music career of the 1950s and 1960s, landmark projects of the 1970s, through to her continued dedication to bring tradition to wider audiences today. In the making of this legendary figure, Rebecca reveals herself as someone who is creative, honest, at times uncertain but above all courageous – one who has lent a resonating array of emotions, experience and materials for contemporary interpretation.

Exhibition participants:

Rebecca Pan
Enoch Cheng
Chan Chung Ki

Venue address: 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T.

kat , felt, suzani, syrmak . . . All these traditional materials and technique along with their unique styles and ornaments make up the distinctive textile culture of Central Asia. Age-old textile practices permeate the political economy and serve as a medium for social life. Even in the current era of information technology, textile production is a deeply rooted part of many Central Asian peoples’ daily lives. Contemporary artists from this region also often use this textile culture for inspiration and as creative material to respond to political and social transformation, raising discussions around the preservation of traditions, the circulation of collective memory and how textiles can encourage unity within a community.

This exhibition takes textiles and crafts as the starting point for an in-depth exploration of this vast interconnected territory with its multi-layered politics, societies and cultures. The exhibition has two parts: Clouds and Power  co-curated by Slavs and Tatars and You Mi, and Suture: Reimagining Ornament  curated by Alexandra Tsay. The first part uses traditional ikat  as a metaphor to present the intricacies of Central Asia’s political and social landscape. The ‘bazaar-like’ exhibition design also paints a group portrait of Central Asian contemporary art. The second part focuses on Central Asian traditional ornamentation, exploring it as a language that both reflects and shapes politics, society and culture. Its focus on Central Asian female artists also reveals important powers that have been concealed by mainstream narratives.

Venue address: 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T.

Absolute Blue: BUAISOU Works with Japanese Natural Indigo is the first comprehensive exhibition to introduce the works by BUAISOU, a young craft collective working with Japanese natural indigo. The exhibition will feature immersive installations of BUAISOU’s indigo works and introduce their unique farm-to-closet practices and innovative techniques through a display of their dyed works, tools and recreated studio space.

Based in Tokushima, BUAISOU pursues the craft of Japanese natural indigo dye through traditional fermentation methods. From cultivating, processing and fermenting indigo, to dyeing, most of their production procedures are performed manually using traditional methods. While upholding the revered traditions of the centuries-old craft, BUAISOU has pushed the boundaries of Japanese natural indigo dyeing beyond textiles and communicates with contemporary audiences through diverse collaborations with international brands and designers from Jimmy Choo, Tory Burch, NIKE, to Artek and more.

Venue address: CHAT/MILL6 Foundation
The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T

The exhibition We are Textile Culture Net! introduces highlights from three exhibitions presented by Textile Culture Net in the past; About ABOUT A WORKER (co-curated by Alessandra Tempesti and Elena Ianeselli from Lottozero), Common Threads (curated by Sjouk Hoitsma from TextielMuseum) and Your Things (curated by Marta Kowalewska from the Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź). CHAT responds to the highlighted works with selections from CHAT’s contemporary art collection and past projects, juxtaposing them to create new dialogues between these exhibitions and projects. Each work has been realised through collaboration with various communities such as refugees, the LGBTQ+ community, migrant workers and female prisoners.

Expanding the network to include diverse communities based in Hong Kong, half of CHAT’s galleries are transformed by the Learning and Community team into a communal space for a series of workshops as part of CHAT’s ongoing community programme Seed to Textile. Inviting community members to take part in research and experimental workshops, the programme traces textile-manufacturing down to its origin through conducting artistic exercises to envision a sustainable future. This year, collaborators in this programme, or Seeders, include Breakthrough Art Studio, Elizabeth Briel, Eastman Cheng, Hao Lap Yan Benjamin, Ma Wing Man and Pop & Zebra.

Venue address: 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T.

Titled A Net (Dis)entangled, the exhibition and second chapter of the Spinning East Asia Series features 16 groups of artists based in East Asia, or whose creative research revolves around East Asian topics. The participating artists approached their work with an open mind and from various angles with regards to textile culture, from its materiality, associated techniques, to subject matters and more. For these artists, the cultural significance of textile informed their way of thinking and form of presentation, which has opened up countless new possibilities for artistic expression and experimentation.

The exhibition precisely hones in on the interdependent yet conflicted web of East Asian relations in today’s context. By bringing into discussion how maintaining one’s own identity and uniqueness within a larger complexity can be practically achieved, the exhibition provides a point of reference for people from diverse cultures for their own reflections. This discussion is particularly pertinent to Hong Kong, a city influenced by the surrounding geographic region and globalisation.

Venue address: 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan, N.T.

In modern times, East Asia has navigated through waves of geopolitical, economic and cultural crises, both internal and external, with countries and territories in the area simultaneously tested by the challenges of globalisation and multilateral relations. Shared among its people groups are knowledge systems and hard-learned lessons from history. Yet there are also paradoxical perception and deep-rooted antagonism mixed with interdependence and disdain that accompanied the establishment and collapse of cultural identities.

Titled A Compass in Hand, the first chapter of the Spinning East Asia Series sets out to navigate through, explore and articulate the entangled web of familiar yet alien, complex and constantly evolving social and cultural circumstances. 15 individuals and collectives of artist-designers embark on their research and creative journey, seeking to address how the historical, social and ideological landscapes of East Asia are accepted and shaped by individual cognition, formed as a result of the friction between various individual and collective forces. Here, textile as a method and idea is articulated through the study of ‘East Asia’ by exhibiting practitioners and presented through multiple forms such as materiality, technique and cultural meaning.

Venue address: CHAT, The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan

Spanning the Winter 2021 and Spring 2022 Programmes, the Spinning East Asia series presented by CHAT explores and attempts to make sense of the socio-cultural complexity of East Asia through the multiplicity of textiles. Before the official launch of the exhibition series, a series of online sharing entitled Following Traces will invite a few participating artists from the exhibition, as well as researchers and fellow speakers to share their thoughts, investigations and creative processes as they worked on these new projects. The speakers will trace the source of their ideas, their moments of inspiration and challenges they have encountered in a colloquy that will give rise to further discussion and creation, and open up the floor to invite audience members to pose questions and responses.

For full Programm and registration please refer to the website

Yee I-Lann: Until We Hug Again  is the first solo exhibition in Hong Kong by Yee I-Lann, an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist from Kota Kinabalu, the State of Sabah, Malaysia.

Yee established her artistic career through digitally manipulating images from found photographs and historical archives. Her works respond to the modern history of the Southeast Asia Archipelago and its colonial past and postcolonial present. Interrogating the nature of photographic imagery, which often subconsciously capture power structures such as hegemony, hierarchy and gender inequality embedded in societies while preserving them as memory or documentation, Yee has been disentangling historical narratives from a single perspective, presenting complex cultural identities formed by multiple ethnicities throughout the geopolitical history of Southeast Asia.

This Spring, CHAT proudly presents Interweaving Poetic Code, an exciting collection of new seasonal programmes, including large-scale interactive installations, hands-on ‘unlearning stations’, an online discussion forum, performances and more tied to the themes of code, textile and care.

For this season, we have invited renowned educator, writer, artist and activist Taeyoon Choi to be the Artistic Director of Interweaving Poetic Code. His multifaceted practices of computation critically examines the systems embedded in the technology surrounding us while exploring alternative ways of shaping an inclusive society with the idea of care.

Joining him in this explorative journey of coding in textile(s) are fellow artists Aarati Akkapeddi, Andreas Angelidakis, Laura Devendorf, Christine Sun Kim, KOBAKANT, Amor Munoz and Rebirth Garments.

Venue address: The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan

We are proud to present CHAT Winter Programme 2020 Yin Xiuzhen: Sky Patch! Opening from 31 Oct, 2020 to 11 April 2021, this exhibition features the works by acclaimed artist Yin Xiuzhen and explores the idea and the very action of patching and repairing one’s relationship with their surroundings and the various communities to which they belong through the common thread of textile. Prepare yourselves for a newly transformed CHAT as Yin redesigns our gallery space for a vastly different viewing experience that questions and examines intergenerational divide and collective memories.

Venue address: 4th Floor, The Mills,
45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan

In this solo exhibition hosted by CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile), the Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen has created a spatial installation titled Sky Patch ·In Transit specifically for The Hall of The Mills. 20 suitcase-shaped artworks hanging in the air as well as several installations on the ground is going to recreate the ambience of the atrium of The Mills. These 20 hanging works constitute a patch of ‘sky’ stitched out of fabric, and on the ground beneath them are various installations reminiscent of airport facilities, creating a space similar to that of an airport terminal. Majority of the works are made by sewing together a large number of second-hand clothes, a material Yin frequently works with.

Venue address: CHAT, The Mills, 45 Pak Tin Par Street, Tsuen Wan