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, temporary and open-ended, works frequently fold back on themselves in the process of interrogating archives, nostalgia, amnesia, diaspora, displacement and translation. Recent and forthcoming commissions include Centenary (2022), a long poem/soundwork (Create London/Resonance) and REWIND/REPLAY (2022), a multichannel site-specific installation with sound, projections and tape (Netwerk Aalst, Feb-May 2022 and Van Abbemuseum, Nov 2022-April 2023, as part of Rewinding Internationalism).
SOLO EXHIBITIONS / COMMISSIONS
Centenary commissioned by Create London for Becontree Centenary (2022); 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 , 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)Pavilion
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
REWIND / REPLAY (2022)

seven x seven (2021)


A COVEN A GROVE A STAND (2019)

Below: susan pui san lok, 2019, Score for Voices, 7-panel text, 238 x 420mm, limited edition of 1,000 / unlimited photocopies

THROUGH THE GATE / an(g)archivery (2016-18)

DIASPORA PAVILION (2017)

RoCH FANS & LEGENDS (2015-17)






FIVE/SIX WOMEN / MAKING WAYS (2012/15)



LIGHTNESS (2012)



FASTER, HIGHER (2008, 2009, 2012, 2014)



GOLDEN (2005-ongoing)



