Portals, Stories, and Other Journeys takes the extensive personal archive of the late Hong Kong artist Ha Bik Chuen as a starting point to explore the archive as a space of creativity and enquiry.

A self-taught sculptor and printmaker, Ha left behind a vast personal archive—his “thinking studio.” He documented exhibitions that he attended from the 1960s till the 2000s, and kept records in the form of ephemera, negatives, contact sheets, and photo albums. He also collected printed matter like illustrated magazines, and created book collages from these publications. As an autodidact, Ha’s library contained books on art and visual culture from far beyond the port city of Hong Kong.

This exhibition comprises ten “sets” that share what this archive can do—how it fuels practices of artists, and how it shapes and shifts our understanding of Hong Kong’s history and art, while featuring new commissions from artists Banu Cennetoğlu, Kwan Sheung Chi, Lam Wing Sze, Raqs Media Collective, and Walid Raad.

The sets you see upon entering this portal are assembled from the archive’s holdings, its stories, and many things in between.