Waste Matters

Gayle Chong Kwan has convinced the jury for her solid and visionary poetics that is fully in line with the objectives of the award promoted by Ca’ Foscari. In particular, she impressed the jury because the thematics she deals with in her projects - such as the reuse of food waste and their artistic translation– match with the discussion around the fragile balance that characterizes our contemporary realities. For Gayle Chong Kwan, waste is never an end in itself or decontextualized, but a vibrant and vital question that has its roots in the modus vivendi of our society.

Born in 1974 in Edinburgh, UK. Lives and works in London, UK. Gayle Chong Kwan is a London-based artist, whose large-scale photographic installation, sound, participatory, and video work is exhibited nationally and internationally, both in major galleries and in the public space.

Her work is an ongoing investigation into simulacra and the sublime, which she explores through constructed immersive environments and mise en scenes, created in states of resolution and dissolution between imagined futures, alternative presents, and fictional mechanisms. The personal and global politics of food and tourism is a major focus of Gayle Chong Kwan's practice. Her work is often specific to a context and she explores histories, memory and senses. The artist's pieces take the viewer on a journey across countries and civilizations, exploring the relationship between food and culture, and underlying the importance of waste in giving measure to our lives. Playing with scale and merging the real and the constructed, she has often created large and multi-layered installations, exploring the built environment, strata and waste, as wells as many mythical landscape, created through arrangements foods.

A selection of Gayle Chong Kwan’s recent exhibition includes: Dream Tapestry, a communal tapestry of dreams created during the Covid-19 emergency in partnership with the London Borough of Waltham Forest (2020), Kew-Pamplemousse, online solo show, Alberta Pane Gallery (Paris/Venice) and Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?, online group show, Alberta Pane Gallery (Paris/Venice) in 2020; Capturing Motion, photography residency, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (2019), STORMY WEATHER, site-specific installation at Museum Arnhem, Netherlands (2019), Wastescape: Weaving Landscapes of Politics, Dairy, and Waste at Auckland Arts Festival in New Zealand (2019); Quarantine Archipelago, Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2019); Experiential Ecology, The Edge at Bath University, UK (2019); Preserved, commissioned by Nuit Blanche for the City of Toronto (2018); The People's Forest, William Morris Gallery, London (2018) and Barbican Centre in London (2017); Microclimate commissioned by Invisible Dust (2018) and Anthropo-scene at Bloomberg Space, London (2015). The artist is also developing Waste Matters, a sustainable project in collaboration with Ca’ Foscari University, in Venice, as the winner of the Sustainable Art Prize 2019. Moreover, she won the International Artist Award from the British Council, she took part in the Asia-Pacific Biennial in Berlin, in the 54° Biennale di Venezia and in the 10° Havana Biennial.

Currently studying for a PhD at the Royal College of Art, in London, in her research the artist explores The Poetics and Ethics of Imaginal Travel, through field trips and conversations and collaborations with environmentalists, historians, archivists, philosophers and scientists.