Founded in 1996 as Hong Kong’s first self-organized and artist-run space and initially managed by a group of the city’s artists and curators, Para Site today plays a vital role in fostering and catalyzing the local art scene. Its role has evolved over time—particularly during the pandemic—into something more akin to a think tank and curatorial platform. It now probes the artistic expressions emerging not only from Hong Kong but from across the broader Asia Pacific region while threading these conversations into a global context.
“We shifted from artist-founded to curator-driven,” Para Site director Billy Tang told Observer as we walked through the show ahead of Hong Kong Art Week. “I believe curators have to act as custodians, Para Site is a platform for curators to help define the city’s fast-shifting art scene.” Still, Tang was quick to emphasize that the organization resists binary labels or divisions as it’s driven by a dynamic and dialectical exchange between different roles—sometimes, that central figure is the artist. “The goal is to provide new readings of the curatorial practice.”
Para Site first opened in a modest space in Kennedy Town. It later moved to a 150-square-meter venue in Sheung Wan before settling into its current home on the 11th and 22nd floors of a multidestination industrial building in Quarry Bay. The organization’s name, Tang pointed out, invites multiple interpretations. “It can be read as the organism that inhabits, infiltrates, adapts and, more importantly, is resilient. Or it can refer to an alternative art space—one that rejects grandiose architecture.” Para Site has always responded to shifts in its physical context, continuously adapting and embracing fluidity, and this capacity for shapeshifting is what has enabled it to survive as one of the oldest independent art spaces not only in Hong Kong but anywhere in Asia. “I think that it’s really interesting to consider how creativity in Hong Kong is not limited by size or to ordinary art spaces.” Eschewing the traditional white cube, the windows on the 22nd floor were specifically preserved to cultivate a sense of proximity and propinquity, allowing for dialogue between the art space and the surrounding urban and natural landscape.
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However, the fact that the exhibition space lacks a prominent street-level presence and is somewhat tucked away in a non-traditional setting does create challenges for accessibility and curation. But this spatial ambiguity also invites experimentation—encouraging alternative exhibition practices and fresh ways of engaging with audiences and patrons. “We have to constantly think about how to get people here,” Tang said. “But this allows us a flexibility that maybe other places lack that can really lead to a broader impact, whether by giving people the first chances as curators or artists or by thinking more closely about audience engagement and creating a real community around the space.” Education, he pointed out, is central to Para Site’s mission: the organization functions not only as a site for artistic production but as a platform for sharing innovative practices among cultural professionals, artists and new audiences. “A key part of our program is to invite facilitators, experts who represent particular approaches, to share their knowledge.”
Though it was among the city’s first arts organizations to receive public funding, its primary financial support now comes from a network of generous local and international patrons. A glance at a long list posted at the entrance reveals the depth of this backing, which includes some of the most prominent international artists and major galleries across the globe. At the same time, patronage from within Hong Kong has expanded, driven by a new generation of art enthusiasts eager to contribute. “It’s amazing and quite unique because we are not the most luxurious or iconic building or museum,” said Tang. “It also speaks a lot of the philanthropy, generosity and this legacy of support that has just grown, and as it has grown, we have been able to grow with it.” Para Site is now putting focused effort into cultivating awareness on the patronage side. “This is tied to our fellowship program,” he clarified; the initiative encourages patrons to support a fellow—be it a curator, an artist-in-residence or, more broadly, a cultural worker and producer.
Para Site’s reputation on the international stage has been steadily bolstered by its consistently cutting-edge exhibitions. These often probe social, political and cultural issues specific to Hong Kong while also offering visibility to artists and curators at pivotal moments—frequently providing a first platform to those who go on to hold positions in major institutions or organize some of the art world’s most important biennials. A testament to that ambition was the exhibition on view during Art Basel Hong Kong, “How to be Happy Together?“, a striking reflection of the resilience of Hong Kong’s artistic community as it moves through and beyond the city’s layered historical challenges.
The exhibition, on through April 13, grounds itself in both present-day urgencies and collective memory, bringing together a remarkably diverse group of artists whose personal histories and practices connect to diasporic narratives. Over twenty artists from Hong Kong, neighboring regions and Latin America are featured, their works inspired in part by Wong Kar Wai’s film Happy Together. Set in Buenos Aires—on the opposite side of the world from Hong Kong—the film explores imagined and real encounters across geographies, echoing the city’s layered identity as a place “between east and west” and “between tradition and modernity.”
Tang joined Para Site after the pandemic, relocating from London, where he was raised. In a personal sense, the move was also a return—his parents first arrived in Hong Kong as refugees from Vietnam in the late 1960s, and that diasporic lineage deepens his connection to the themes explored in the exhibition. “When we think about Chinese and Hong Kongese migration and diaspora, it happens in so many different directions,” he reflected. “I think that’s very poetic. That generation before, like my parents, were here as refugees, then went to the U.K. And now I’m the one coming back.”
“In a polarized world, I think it’s our role to facilitate more of these changes and also blur the boundary between outside and inside,” Tang continued. Many artists in the show engage in unconventional forms of art making, often working collaboratively—whether as duos or collectives—and across geographies, particularly when technology comes into play. Since Tang’s arrival, Para Site has leaned into more conventional group shows while simultaneously probing what it means to be together, moving beyond simplistic labels like solo show or group show. “Zoom made these collaborative practices possible, particularly between people far from each other,” he said, noting that artists in Hong Kong and across Asia are increasingly challenging the traditional notion of authorship by embracing collective approaches. “When we think about resilience, coming together and supporting one another becomes fundamental. As a collective of artists and curators founded Para Site, I think it’s important to focus on these practices.”
“How to be Happy Together?” takes on an intergenerational investigation across geographies, ultimately inviting the viewer to consider Hong Kong from the vantage point of multiple global perspectives. While Para Site has continued its commitment to showcasing emerging practices since Tang joined, it has also become a space to rediscover and elevate a generation of mid-career and overlooked historical talents—artists whose stories remain largely untold or have yet to receive wider institutional recognition.
Among them is the self-taught Chinese artist Xiyadie, whose work boldly introduces homoerotic themes into the tradition of papercutting. Born near the Siberian border and relocating to Beijing as a migrant worker in the early 2000s, this visionary—who renamed himself “Siberian Butterfly”—has recently experienced a surge in international interest following his inclusion in the last Venice Biennale.
Similarly, the show features a work by Luis Chan, one of the foundational figures of Hong Kong modernism. Born in Panama to Cantonese parents and resettled in Hong Kong in 1910, Chan played a key role in bridging East and West through his writing as a critic and journalist, as well as in his paintings, which fused modernist styles with traditional Chinese techniques. Known locally as the “King of watercolor” and celebrated as a catalytic figure in the city’s art history, Chan has recently been brought back into the spotlight thanks to the blockbuster Picasso show at the M+ museum, which included several of his works.
Para Site’s exhibition also traces lesser-known cultural links between Hong Kong and South America through the stories and practices of other featured artists. For instance, it introduces the pioneering design work of Chinese-Brazilian architect and designer Chu Ming Silveira, who created the now-iconic, organically shaped telephone booth orelhão. Inspired by nature, the design offered not only a practical acoustic solution but also seamlessly blended into Brazil’s urban landscape.
Another standout is Costa Rica-born, Taiwanese-descendant artist Mimian Hsu, whose practice combines traditional Costa Rican textile techniques with Taiwanese visual language. Weaving together personal and familial narratives, Hsu’s work speaks to broader diasporic sentiments and enduring questions of belonging.
Also on view during the art week was “Take Turns,” a one-room installation by Hong Kong artist Wing Po So. Drawing from ancient traditions of Chinese medicine, Po So explores shifting dynamics in nature, the body, materiality and their fluid interconnectedness. Made of salvaged drawers from the apothecary cabinets once used by now-defunct traditional Chinese pharmacies in Hong Kong, the installation investigates the cyclical interplay of birth, healing, renewal and decay. Their worn surfaces bear witness to the life cycles of all things while functioning as containers for an elaborated orchestration of Chinese herbs, rocks, kinetic sculptures, 3D-printed objects, sonic rhythms and more. Taken together, these elements create an ecosystem where the boundaries between the organic and inorganic, the animate and inanimate, dissolve. The entire installation is a powerful symbolic and alchemical site for the artist to test the indeterminate essence of matter in continual motion, revealing everything as part of a system of interdependent energies and forces.
In addition to its exhibition work, Para Site partnered with Art Basel Hong Kong in 2025 to curate the fair’s film program. Featuring a curated selection of six screenings featuring twenty-nine films by and about artists from Asia and beyond, “In Space, It’s Always Night” aimed to provide a global perspective that would transcend geographical boundaries to showcase the diverse and evolving field of video art. “I think the moving image is really such a vital field in which the language is immediate. There’s a fluency that can transcend differences of language,” Tang said, explaining how films are an accessible art form that can help introduce contemporary art to new audiences. “It’s one of the most immersive mediums, but also one of the most challenging ones to present in an institution.” The program, curated by Isadora Neves Marquez, a trans artist and filmmaker from Portugal who moved to Hong Kong, also served as an emotional counterweight to the fair—it offered opportunities for slow contemplation in a fast-paced and market-driven transactional environment. “Here, you can just allow yourself another experience of time and space.”
Tang sees Hong Kong’s art ecosystem flourishing, with new places and players entering the scene all the time. While some people may have left, others are returning. “I think now we realize how difficult things are outside, and actually, people are coming back, as Hong Kong feels relatively stable now compared to elsewhere,” he said. Hong Kong has experienced a lot in its history, and its people have developed a resilience and an openness to other cultures. “I think that’s what speaks of the best of this kind of spirit of the city—of how to reinvent and imagine and how to deal and adapt with all these kinds of changes.”
People outside always think Hong Kong has an expiration date, according to Tang. This happened in 1997 with the handover—just after Para Site was founded—and it repeated with the pandemic, the protests and the new security laws that further tied the country to China. While Hong Kong has often been treated as not having its own identity, the entirety of Para Site’s program aims to prove the opposite, showing the city’s dynamism and the variety of expressions emerging from its continuous evolution.
