SPSL

susan pui san lok / ~~susan~~ lok pui san is an artist and writer based in London. Projects range across site-specific immersive installation, moving image, sound, performance, artist books/multiples and text works. Often multi-stranded and intersecting, works are frequently temporary and open-ended, with elements folding back on themselves in the repetitive and variant processes of interrogating archives, states of nostalgia, amnesia, diaspora, displacement and translation.

She is currently developing a new body of work called REWIND/REPLAY, the first iteration of which was an installation with sound, projections, tape and live performance inhabiting the 200sqm ground floor gallery of Netwerk Aalst (February-May 2022). REWIND/REPLAY will be presented as part of the expanded exhibition Rewinding Internationalism at Van Abbemuseum, curated by Nick Aikens (November 2022).

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

seven x seven solo show, South Block and Briggait Project Spaces, Glasgow, curated by Mother Tongue for Glasgow International Festival (2021); A COVEN A GROVE A STAND at Firstsite, part of New Geographies (2019); RoCH Fans & Legends at CFCCA (2016) and QUAD (2015); Lightness (2012), commissioned by Film & Video Umbrella (FVU) and De La Warr Pavilion for the Wellcome-funded exhibition, Everything Flows; Faster, Higher (2008), commissioned by FVU and BFI Southbank to coincide with the Beijing Olympics, with solo shows at the Gallery at Winchester Discovery Centre (2012) and MAI, Montreal (2014); DIY Ballroom/Live (2007-08), a Cornerhouse / BBC Bigger Picture national touring commission; and Golden (2005-7/ongoing), an Arts Council England and AHRC-funded project, including exhibitions, residencies, a publication, live events, and commissions for Beaconsfield, London, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, Guangdong Museum of Art and Venice.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS (International)

Found Cities, Lost Objects: Women in the City, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (2022) and Southampton City Art Gallery, UK (2023); Rewinding Internationalism, Netwerk Aalst, Belgium (2022), Van Abbemuseum, NL (2022) and Villa Arson, Nice (2023); Working: Women in Art Practice, He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen (2021-22); Diaspora Pavilion and Sonic Soundings, Venice (2017); China Remix, Indiana University, Bloomington (2017); 1st Asia Biennial & 5th Guangzhou Triennial (2015-16); SITE Sante Fe (2012); Hong Kong Arts Centre (2006); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2004); Shanghai Duolun MoMA (2004, 2005); Beijing 798 Space (2004); Gallery 4a, Australia (2001)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS / PROJECTS (UK)

Art Is Where The Home Is artists activity pack, Firstsite (2020); Common Third, Copperfield Gallery, London (2018); ~~Diaspora ~~Pavilion~~~~ , Wolverhampton Art Gallery (2018); Presence – A Window into Contemporary Chinese Art, St George’s Hall, Liverpool (2018); FLOW, Asia-Art-Activism, Raven Row, London (2018); The Global Archive, Hanmi Gallery (2013); Everything Flows, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill (2012); AND Festival, Holden Gallery, Manchester (2012); How We Became Metadata, University of Westminster Gallery, London (2010); Hit the Ground, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle (2009); Artist in the Archive, Cornerhouse (2008); Reassurance, Chinese Arts Centre (2006); Reassurance, SPACETriangle, London (2005); Lightsilver, Beaconsfield (2005); The Translator’s Notes, Cafe Gallery Projects (2003); Cities on the Move, Hayward Gallery (1999); DEAL, 198 Gallery (1998)

ARTIST BOOKS / MULTIPLES

seven x seven (2021, artist multiple, digital edition and video); RoCH Fans & Legends (2017, freeebook); RoCH Fan (2015, concertina multiple); Faster, Higher (2009, monograph); Golden (Notes) (2007, artist book); and NEWS (2005, artist book)

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

‘Vong Phaophanit and Claire Oboussier: Three Decades, Four Moments‘, an extended interview in ‘Remapping British Art’, Art History (S Boyce and D Price eds., 2021; ‘Tiohtià:kee, Tāmaki Makaurau – somewhere over the under, beneath the between‘, short essay in GAX: Ngā Tai o te Ao: Global Tides (A Chang, C Huddleston, J Randerson eds., 2021, St Paul St Publishing, AUT/GAX, A/P/A Institute, NYU); contribution to ‘Decolonising Art History’ Art History (C Grant and D Price eds., 2020); ‘between the voice between the words between the work between us‘, a visual/text essay in ‘Voice as Form‘, Oxford Art Journal (P Corey and W Teo Eds, 2020); co-editor and contributor to Conceptualism: Intersectional Readings, International Framings (N Aikens, SPSL and S Orlando eds., 2019, Van Abbemuseum); an acrostic visual/poetic text for The Place Is Here (N Aikens and E Robles eds., 2019, Sternberg); a video/essay for Deviant Practice (N Aikens ed., 2018, Van Abbemuseum); and visual/text essays for Contesting British Chinese Culture (A Thorpe and D Yeh eds., 2018, Palgrave Macmillan) and the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (2016, special issue, F Koch and RO Lopes, eds)

SELECTED PROJECTS

seven x seven (2021)

Above: susan pui san lok, Ascendants Descendant / Descendants Ascendants (2021), site-specific wallpaper, and Witches Rise (2021), installation with horseshoes. South Block, Glasgow. Installation view. Photo: Matthew Arthur Williams.

Below: susan pui san lok, seven x seven, 2021, single-channel video, 26’ 26”. Still: Courtesy of the artist.