Agenda

14.03 - 11.05.2025

ProtoZone18

curated by Michelangelo Miccolis
23.05 - 20.07.2025

ProtoZone19

curated by Phila Bergmann & Thea Reifler
01.08 - 28.09.2025

ProtoZone20 (FINALE)

curated by Lucie Tuma, Michelangelo Miccolis, Phila Bergmann & Thea Reifler

Bo Choy

Part of ProtoZone17: Stories of those left behind, 15.11.2024-12.01.2025

 

1) Do You Remember

2)Yearnings of the exiled souls

 

 

1) Do You Remember (2024)

 

How do our bodies remember, our ancestral histories as well as others’? The film uses Bert Heilinger’s family constellation therapy and movement performance as a basis, to explore the impact our ancestors have on our present reality and the potential of our bodies to hold memories that do not belong to us. In family constellation therapy, ancestral relationships are unveiled in a group role play exercise where participants are invited to “be” their family members and intuit their bodies across the space. Insights are revealed about the present through the constellated image resulting from the movements.

 

I am fascinated by the idea of one’s body as a site for lived experiences, not only of one’s own, but of the wider networks of human beings; the kinetic possibilities of the body in expressing the unconscious history of our ancestral pasts; and body movement as a language of divination. It invites us to rethink the ways we are interconnected with one another in the past and present. The family constellation scene is interwoven with a movement scene. Here, the dancers stand in for the unseen, the unconscious memories that instruct our bodies to move within the constellated field – a power over the intuit movements of the participants in the constellation.

 

Credits:

Written and directed by Bo Choy

Director of Photography: Mateo Villanueva Brandt

Movement director: Stephanie McMann

Music: Jamie Michael McCarthy Title: Le Brâme du Cerf au Crepuscule and

In the Park, In the Dark, Tracing the Light

Gaffer: Theodora Laird, Conrad Magan

Costume designer: Caleb Ka Lap Chow

Dancers: Jane Chan, Nicole Nevitt, Fernanda Muñoz Newsome, Kai Tomioka

Family Constellation performers: Jessica Graves, Alex Harland, MJ Lee, Janice Li, Tessia Watson

Production Assistant: Ciana Taylor

 

 

2) Yearnings of the exiled souls (2023)

 

This poem film is a commission from the collaborative project, Dissolving Earths, between British and Siberian artists, convened by undead matter and Strelka Institute, partnered with Mimosa House, TBA21 and Het Nieuwe Instituut. It came about through the conversations the artist had with scientists, anthropologists, shamans and artists concerning the mythologies and ecologies in Lake Baikal, Siberia, in order to highlight the impact of climate change to the region’s thawing permafrost.

 

This symbols of the poem and film image take inspiration from the Buryat notion motherland, toonto nyutag. It can be translated as “the land connected with us via navel-string (umbilical cord)”. According to their customs, when a child is born, their afterbirth and umbilical cord will be buried in the ground of the place of birth, where their parents pitch their tent. This then becomes the child’s toonto nyutag, motherland. This practice manifests a visceral relationship between the earth and the body; a bond that defines the concept of home, identity. The earth from the motherland becomes a time-traversing site with which we connect to our ancestors and ancient realities.

 

Bo Choy, born Hong Kong.

Choy makes films and performances using writing, sound, costume and movement as narrative devices. Fiction is an integral part of her work, weaving imaginary and extraordinary elements into a narrative that is otherwise rooted in the everyday. She borrows from Eastern thought and folklore traditions to navigate themes such as post-colonial identity and memory (individual and collective); how the personal/familial past and present are embedded in the complex relations with the wider socio-politico-historical contexts. Apart from having affecting qualities, her work opens a space for questions and reflections on our relationship with the world at large.

Choy lives and works in London and apart from her artistic practice, she also teaches BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art, University of the Arts London.

Selected screenings/exhibitions Choy has participated in: B3 Festival of Moving Image, Frankfurt (2023), Hive Centre of Contemporary Art, Beijing (2023), Art Central, Hong Kong (2022), Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Hawick (2021), Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London (2021), Kasseler DokFest, Kassel (2020), Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Moscow (2020), 6th Thessaloniki Biennale, Greece (2017)

Shedhalle – Bo Choy

Yearnings of the exiled souls, Bo Choy, 2023.
Production still, Photography by Eunice Tsang

Shedhalle – Bo Choy

Yearnings of the exiled souls, Bo Choy, 2023

Shedhalle – Bo Choy

Remember, 2024, Bo Choy. Film Still, Photography: Ciana Taylor

Shedhalle – Bo Choy

Remember, 2024, Bo Choy. Film Still

Shedhalle – Bo Choy

Remember, 2024, Bo Choy. Film Stills