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South China Morning Post

Hong Kong artist turns TCM items into fascinating works of art

Born into a family of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioners, Hong Kong artist So Wing-po was never tempted to follow in her parents' footsteps. Advertisement Rather, a creative sensibility emerged from her childhood fascination with the family's TCM pharmacy in Sheung Wan, a space overflowing with herbs, fruit and animal parts. Now, the 40-year-old has gained recognition for transforming those materials and the holistic philosophy embedded in TCM into a distinct visual language. In her hands, dissected and dried cures seem like living entities, appearing in large-scale installations, sculptures and videos in which they hint at, but are also at a remove from, their traditional uses. Take her kinetic installation Sea Ear Hi Hat (2020), made up of over a dozen abalone shells – a material used in TCM to cleanse the liver, also known as 'sea ears' – that she motorised to open and close like hi-hat cymbals. Their uncanny appearance, steady exhalations, resemblance to human ears and known healing properties imbue Sea Ear Hi Hat with an arresting vitality. Sea Ear Hi-Hat (Take Turns) (2025), by So Wing-po, which repurposes the kinetic abalone shells from her 2020 work Sea Ear Hi Hat, is displayed at her current solo exhibition 'Polyglot' at Blindspot Gallery. Photo: Edmond So Since her debut solo exhibition at Tai Kwun in 2018, her ability to incorporate the microscopic in installations that speak to universal concerns has been sought after around the world.