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Pain of SelectionHo Tzu Nyen
(Film 1 of 5) Walking around the bustling commercial streets of Hong Kong, artist Ho Tzu Nyen questions what unites a region as diverse as Southeast Asia. “All of these different forms of culture, histories are stacked one on top of the other like the strata of the earth with different layers,” the artist says. “This sense of composites or mixtures is very much part of my DNA.” While looking at representations of merlions or through stacks of archival slides, the artist reflects on his personal memories and childhood experiences from Hong Kong cinema to Cantonese pop music to colonial histories of the region. This suite of four documentary shorts follows Ho as he works with AI, archives, celebrity, and the moving image, exploring the disparate cultures, worldviews, and experiences that comprise Southeast Asia.
Credits
Executive Producer: Tina Kukielski. Series Producer: Ian Forster. Director of Development: Lolita Fierro. Associate Director of Communications: Hannah DeGarmo. Associate Curator: Jurrell Lewis. Curatorial Assistant: Noor Tamari.
Production Company: Rava Films. Producers: Ava Wiland & Rafael Salazar Moreno. Managing Producer: Danielle Davis.
Director/Producer: Jonna McKone. Cinematography: Ian Wong. Field Producer: Maggie Li. Associate Producer: Hyungjin Lee. Additional Cinematography: Christoph Lerch. Sound: Dominic Yip. Assistant Camera: Andy Lau & Michael Mok. Runner: Tomas Cope. Editor: Russell Yaffe. Colorist: Russell Yaffe. Sound Mix: Russell Yaffe. Assistant Editor: Sam Klein. Visual Effects: Hyungjin Lee. Music: Spacelute. Composers: Troy Herion & J.R. Narrows. Title Design: Alina Rancier
Artwork Courtesy: Ho Tzu Nyen & Kiang Malingue
Archival Footage: M+ Museum
Special Thanks: M+ Museum, MUDAM, Janfer Chung, Eunice Tsang, Edmond Yin Man Lai, Lili Yun Yur, Wong Hin Yan, Silke Schmickl
© Art21, Inc. 2025. All rights reserved.
Closed captionsAvailable in English, German, Romanian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Italian
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Ho Tzu Nyen was born in 1976 in Singapore, where he lives and works. He received his BA from Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, in 2001 and his MA from the National University of Singapore in 2007. In 2024, he was a recipient of the CHANEL Next Prize. Throughout his practice, the artist draws from epic mythologies, historical figures, popular culture, and film archives to better understand how history, culture, and identity are constructed and disseminated. Through film, animation, performance, and installation, Ho weaves fact and fiction to investigate the realities, histories, and temporalities that comprise Southeast Asia.
“All of these different forms of culture and histories are stacked one on top of the other like the strata of the earth with different layers. This sense of composites or mixtures is very much part of my DNA.”
Ho Tzu Nyen