Rirkrit Tiravanija

A game of table tennis

untitled 2026 (honey in rocks water in stones) is a set of two ping-pong tables inviting visitors to play with friends, family, or even strangers within the museum. The short yet powerful title reminds us to maintain hope in difficult times—a display of Rirkrit Tiravanija’s signature humorous wisdom in his conceptual, text-based work, which creates unexpected encounters in our everyday life. The installation transforms a simple game of ping-pong into a symbolic act of collective effort and a shared aspiration for humanity.

Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thai, born Argentina, 1961) is a pioneer of relational aesthetics since the 1990s. He is best known for his participatory installations and cooking performances that revolve around personal stories and shared cultural traditions. He also creates text-based works as well as installations and films inspired by sociopolitical observations. Tiravanija’s work has been presented and collected by major art institutions around the world, including M+.

Xu Bing

Video installation

Two documentary videos of Xu Bing’s A Case Study of Transference are displayed side by side, capturing the two stagings of this controversial performance in 1993 and 2018. Two pigs—stamped with made-up English and Chinese scripts in 1993 and Xu’s Square Word Calligraphy in 2018—copulate in an enclosure strewn with books, surrounded by visibly embarrassed public spectators. By revealing the arduous preparation behind the two events, the videos offer comparative insight into how the work confronts social taboos and elicits feelings of humiliation. The scattered books, the printed texts on pigs, and the self-aware spectators all symbolise the constructs of civilisation, prompting a deeper reflection on our limits to comprehend the natural world.

By revealing the arduous preparation behind the two events, the videos offer comparative insight into how the work confronts social taboos and elicits feelings of humiliation. The scattered books, the printed texts on pigs, and the self-aware spectators all symbolise the constructs of civilisation, prompting a deeper reflection on our limits to comprehend the natural world.

Xu Bing (Chinese, born 1955) is a visual artist and a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. A MacArthur Fellow, he is widely recognised as one of China’s leading conceptual artists. Throughout his career, he has expanded the boundaries of art, working across different media to question the act of image-making and its perception. He was the winner of the Artes Mundi Prize and received the Medal of Arts from the US Department of State. Xu’s work has been exhibited and collected by art institutions around the world, including M+.

Zheng Mahler

Video and VR Experience

Have you ever wondered how other creatures perceive the world? Inspired by American philosopher Thomas Nagel’s 1974 essay ‘What Is It Like to Be a Bat?’, which asks if we can ever fully understand the conscious experience of another living being, artist duo Zheng Mahler spent two years researching the native bat population on Lantau Island, Hong Kong. The resulting work simulates the experience of being a bat—acknowledging the limits of our human point of view while showing how technology can bring us closer to non-human or more-than-human ways of being.

M+ is presenting two of the work’s four phases at the festival. Watch the video component, What is it like to be a (virtual) bat? Phase II – Point Cloud Visualisation (2022), at the East Entrance. You can also try out the VR experience, What is it like to be a (virtual) bat? Phase IV – Bat Meditation (2022–2023), at the Moving Image Centre to get a sense of what it might be like to live as a bat.

Zheng Mahler (established Hong Kong, 2009) is a collective formed by artist Royce Ng and anthrozoologist Daisy Bisenieks. They examine global trade and the relational networks between nature and technology, along with more-than-human geographies and the environmental architecture emerging from these interactions. Through digital media, performance, and installation, they create speculative scenarios and immersive, sensory encounters that explore the limits and potentials of their respective disciplines.

IkkibawiKrrr

Five-channel video Installation

Who Forgot the Village? (2026) is a site-specific, five-channel video installation adapted for the Moving Image Centre. It traverses ethnic villages across East Asia, capturing their ephemerality on film as they appear to vanish from urban development and the transnational migration of labour. Amid these harsh realities, ikkibawiKrrr explores the ‘village’ as a spiritual concept and seeks deeper connections with local communities. Reflecting on loss and forgetting, the work revisits and amplifies the collective emotions and memories of villagers who remain and those who have moved away. It also defies physical boundaries to imagine how communities can connect and coexist across time and space within the broader human condition.

ikkibawiKrrr (established 2021, South Korea) is a visual research band consisting of members Gyeol Ko and Jieun Cho. Their artistic approach is informed by aspects of mosses, which expand their worlds by interacting closely with their surroundings along the thin boundary between air and soil. ikkibawiKrrr engages with plants, natural phenomena, humanity, and ecology through lived practices and shared time.

2025–2026

You Inhuman Thing is part of Xu Bing’s ongoing Art Satellite Project, initiated in 2024 in collaboration with a private satellite company in Beijing, through which he receives space-borne imageries of Earth. Riffing on the old insult: ‘You are not even human’, the video simulates a ‘human identity’ verification test. In a first-person view, the protagonist clicks through a series of video content—including found footage on social media and news sources, animal documentaries, AI-generated clips, and satellite imagery—to determine whether they depict human behaviour, logic, and ethics. In the end, the test result is positive; however, it also proves that the boundaries and rules between the human and the technologically mediated non-human have dissolved. A sense of unease towards an uncertain future swells as the work draws viewers into a state of vertigo—both familiar and strange, and impossible to fully grasp.  

The screening will be followed by a talk in Mandarin between the artist and Kate Gu, Associate Curator, Digital Special Projects, M+. Consecutive interpretation in English will be available.

Date and time:

Saturday, 30 May 2026, 11:30–12:45

Drop-In

In celebration of the restoration of New Maps of the City Part One: Notes for Films (1981), a major work of the Hong Kong avant-garde, this conversation brings Roger Garcia’s extraordinary life in the arts to light. Garcia will share his creative journey as a filmmaker, critic, and festival-making over the last five decades, discussing how production conditions are always intricately linked with the way ‘people look and think about film’. Bridging theory and practice, his career underpins the development of film culture around the world. This conversation is in English and moderated by Chanel Kong, Curator, Moving Image, M+.

Roger Garcia is a film festival executive, producer, filmmaker, and writer. He has been the executive director of the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the Asian Film Awards Academy, artistic director of the Hainan Island International Film Festival, and curator, consultant, and juror to many international film festivals. He is a film producer who has worked in Asia, Europe, and Hollywood on films and TV. As a film critic, Garcia wrote books and articles that were published by Cahiers du Cinéma and Film Comment, among others. He served as a board member of M+ and was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2018.

Date and time:

Friday, 29 May 2026, 16:30–17:45

Drop-In

In The Twenty-Three Thousand Sexes of Schizophyllum Commune and Other Stories (2026), an M+ web commission, artist duo Zheng Mahler invites visitors to discover the diverse fungi species inhabiting Lantau Island, Hong Kong. The project highlights the distinctive attributes of these mushrooms within the island’s biodiversity and their fascinating stories, exploring their sensory experiences of the world. Through extensive field research and a meticulous methodology, Zheng Mahler trained AI models to generate vibrant animations responding to the playful mushroom narratives. As our future becomes increasingly intertwined with AI, the work prompts reflection on our relationships with non-human worlds and technologies. The screening will be followed by a conversation between Zheng Mahler and Dr Alvin Tang, mycologist, lecturer, and a key contributor to the project, moderated by Kate Gu, Associate Curator, Digital Special Projects, M+.

Zheng Mahler (established Hong Kong, 2009) is a collective formed by artist Royce Ng and anthrozoologist Daisy Bisenieks. They examine global trade and the relational networks between nature and technology, along with more-than-human geographies and the environmental architecture emerging from these interactions. Through digital media, performance, and installation, they create speculative scenarios and immersive, sensory encounters that explore the limits and potentials of their respective disciplines.

Date and time:

Sunday, 31 May 2026, 11:30–12:30

Join us for a hands-on workshop exploring doltap—a long-standing Korean tradition of stacking stones. In rural mountainous regions, you may notice doltap near temples and quiet trails. Local stories and practices vary, but the impulse is often the same: a simple, heartfelt way to make a wish, to mark hope, and to offer care to the places that surround us.

Led by visual research band ikkibawiKrrr, this session invites you to ink and imprint unprocessed natural stones of various sizes onto hanji, traditional Korean handmade paper. Through the gentle practice of stamp-stacking, you will build your own layered composition—an artwork that reflects everyday belief, quiet devotion, and a wish for good fortune.

Date and time:

Sunday, 31 May 2026, 13:30–14:30

M+ Moving Image curators will present the curatorial context and research behind the films in the Asian Avant-Garde Film Collection, especially titles currently in the Spotlight programme in House 3, M+ Cinema. They will also discuss how the initiative repositions Asian experimental film and video art within a broader global narrative of moving image history.

Date and time:

Friday, 29 May 2026, 15:30–16:00

Saturday, 30 May 2026, 15:00–15:30

Drop-In

Hear more from the creative minds behind AAGFF 2026’s visual identity at the Creative Team Pop-Up Talk in the Festival Lounge. You can gain more insight into this collaborative effort as the team shares the concepts of their graphic and merchandise design, on-site and online music programming, and creative video content. The talk brings together Korean design studio BOWYER, sound artist Daham Park, and Yi Lu, Production Assistant, M+, moderated by Eunice Tsang, founding director of Current Plans.

Date and time:

Friday, 29 May 2026 14:00–14:45

Join Daham Park (DJ YES YES) for a three-day musical journey all around Asia. Moving through different moments and spaces, Park invites audiences to imagine shifting across timelines and geographies.

Friday, 29 May 2026, 15:00–16:00: 

Park will perform a predominately vinyl-based set spanning older Asian music, vintage jazz, folk songs, experimental music, and contemporary sounds, featuring tracks collected from personal encounters with local scenes across various regions.

Saturday, 30 May 2026, 12:30–14:00: 

The set centres on contemporary Asian musicians and producers, featuring music born from gatherings in live houses, clubs, raves, studios, and cafés in multiple countries.

Sunday, 31 May 2026, 16:00–19:00: 

From afternoon to evening, this final set blends the musical elements of Friday and Saturday. This is also a great opportunity to meet and chat with Park!

Drop-In

Building on the popularity of previous years’ screen-printing workshop, join us for a hands-on experience that promises to be creative and fulfilling! In these free drop-in sessions, you can select your favourite festival graphic designed by Bowyer to craft your colourful combinations. Bring your own T-shirts, bags, or materials to print, and enjoy expert guidance from screen-printing artist Chan Yi Ting.

Chan Yi Ting is a Hong Kong artist who graduated from Chinese University Hong Kong. Her practice focuses on mixed media and printmaking, which includes skillfully reinterprets everyday objects and scenery. Her interest in mysticism is often reflected in her works. She has also been a tutor for various printmaking workshops and is now working in daytime, printing at night.

Date and time:

Friday, 29 May 2026 15:00–19:00

Saturday, 30 May 2026 11:30–14:00

Sunday, 31 May 2026 15:00–19:00