Expeditions and field research play significant roles in Choy Ka Fai’s process of narrative-building and art-making. Between 2012–16, he embarked on journeys across Asia to collect oral histories from over eighty dance professionals in Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, China, and India for his multidisciplinary project Soft Machine. In Sphere of Prosperity (2025), the artist traces the logistic train line from Madrid to China’s small commodity trade centre, Yiwu, to study a globalized street culture shaped by the ‘made in China’ products and the Sinocentric trade routes. Traversing through major cities and marketplaces across Eurasia by train, Choy collaborates with musicians, artists, dancers, writers, and social media influencers to unpack the affective and material dimensions of the phenomenon of ‘global Chinese’.

Straddling the fields of dance, performance, digital art, and ethnographic research, Choy Ka Fai’s artistic practice explores a circular temporality expressed by the performative cultures that involve the human body. The corporal traditions of dance and ritual generate dialogues about contemporary shifts and simultaneously inform futuristic views on the body. In The Great Disciple (2025), part of Volcano Trilogy (2024–27), Choy delineates an Islamic-centred Javanese culture that spawned out of the ruins of the Merapi volcanic eruption in 1006. Through his study of the Kubro Siswo (great disciple of god) dance, the artist weaves a complex geo-poetic narrative that revolves around the spread of Islam to Indonesia, Indigenous mythologies, and colonial struggles. The worshipping of volcanic spirits, the dance movements signifying soldiers fighting colonizers, and the Arabic literary references and Muslim credos found in the accompanying music, demonstrate the temporality and cultural hybridity of Kubro Siswo, brought to life through the cultural concept of ‘ruination’, in which colonial and Javanese traditions are combined.

Commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), produced by Choy Ka Fai und HKW 2024–25

Works in the exhibition: Choy Ka Fai, Lin Pei-Ying, and Femke Vorselen, Sphere of Prosperity (2025), 3 Jacquard woven fabrics, each 200 × 50 cm, video, ca. 6; Choy Ka Fai, The Great Disciple (2025), 3 banners, one 340 × 40 cm, two 40 × 200 cm, video, 11 36", batik design in collaboration with Prihatmoko Moki. Courtesy of the artists