XYZ Artist in residence
Wong Weng Io
Working across a range of mediums such as sculpture, installation, and video, Wengio (Yoyo) Wong reflects on how we deal with the inevitable changes in human behaviors and emotions in the contemporary digital era, by weaving together the fragmented memories, history, mythology and architectural elements referencing her cultural heritage.
Wong holds a BFA with First Class Honours at the RMIT, Australia (2015) and an MA Sculpture at the RCA (2024). She is the recipient of the Gilbert Bayes RCA Award (2024), RCA+South Thames College Group Artist in Residency (2024-25), and has been awarded the 8th Orient Foundation Art Award (2019).
“Extending from my previous work ‘Glaucus’, ‘Garden of Escape, Fountain of Furor’ is a self-portrait and an anthropomorphic space that explores Macao’s baroque- a hybrid composition of postcolonial European, traditional Chinese, and casino architecture. Inspired by Tao Yuanming’s ‘Peach Blossom Spring’(桃花源記) and the story of ‘Lotus-eaters’ in Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, I look into the idea of escapism, protection, and home by exploring themes of defense mechanisms in psychology and nature.
Drawing inspiration from Taoist Cloud Calligraphy, as outlined in the book ‘Tao Magic: The Chinese Art of The Occult’ by László Legeza. I merged this vocabulary into tables of the ‘English alphabet’ and ‘Defense Mechanism’. Additionally, I incorporate Fu Talismans to provide protection and healing. I made a mixture of papier-mâché with Chinese and Portuguese newspaper, ingredients of ‘Chunambo’ and concrete to explore the shifting meaning of boundaries and materials at different times. ‘Chunambo’ (夯土), composed of brown sugar, oyster shells, gravel, and other ingredients, was employed by the Portuguese Army to construct city borders in Macao.”
