Kay Mei Ling Beadman
Invisibility Cloak
Digital photograph
ABOUT THE WORK
Working on lecture-performance and site-specific walking tours that entwine contemporary accounts of Hong Kong, mixed race identity formation, experiences, colonial records and speculative fiction. Dozens of these ‘invisibility cloaks’ that mask age, race and gender yet simultaneously absurdly heighten visibility are ready and waiting. They are custom-made to fit mixed race collaborators who have shared experiences as well as body measurements, and there are enough for everyone joining to wear too, to be seen and unseen together. But the gregarious, participatory works are postponed, the cloaks hang, waiting. Intimacy, assembling, mingling – the pandemic realigns space, meaning and possibilities, everything is paused.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Kay Mei Ling Beadman is an artist, researcher and co-founder of artist-run initiative Hidden Space. She uses her Chinese and English mixed race to explore aspects of complex dual identity formation, focusing on embodied aspects of lived experience amid socio-politically and culturally constructed assumptions. Her practice is multidisciplinary and includes installation, video, painting and text. She has a BFA from Reading University, UK, an MFA from RMIT, Australia and is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Kay was born in England, and zigzagged between Hong Kong and the UK growing up, but has lived and worked permanently in Hong Kong since 1999. She has exhibited in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka and the UK.