HKBU presents Art Basel parallel exhibition on visual culture

As Hong Kong’s Art Month unfolds in full swing, a new exhibition led by Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) is inviting visitors to pause and reconsider what images mean in an increasingly complex visual world.

Titled Between Image and Index, the exhibition will run from March 19 to April 12 across HKBU campuses, presenting a parallel program to Art Basel Hong Kong 2026.

Organized by the Academy of Visual Arts under HKBU’s School of Creative Arts, the show brings together 33 groups of artists and collectives from Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen and overseas, forming a cross-regional dialogue that reflects the shifting nature of contemporary image-making.

Spread across the Koo Ming Kown Exhibition Gallery in Kowloon Tong and the AVA Gallery in Kai Tak, the exhibition gathers both emerging and established artists working in cities including Frankfurt, Berlin, Krakow, Katowice and Lisbon.

Among them are 10 HKBU faculty members and alumni, whose participation highlights the university’s role in nurturing artistic voices within a global context.

Curated by Professor Janet Fong Man-yee, Assistant Professor at the Academy of Visual Arts, and independent curator Yang Tong, the exhibition explores how images are no longer fixed representations, but evolving mediums shaped by technology, material conditions and cultural contexts.

Set against the backdrop of rapid technological change, the show reflects on how visual languages are continuously reconfigured as they move between physical and digital environments.

The works on display span a wide range of themes, from personal memories and dreams of home to the integration of artificial intelligence with virtual and physical realities. Others examine tensions between tradition and contemporaneity, or the relationship between nature and technology.

Through diverse mediums—including AI-generated moving images, digital prints, interactive sound installations, multimedia works, animation, photography, painting, glass and ceramics—the exhibition captures the fluid state of images as they shift between the virtual and the real.

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Presented during Hong Kong Art Month, the exhibition reflects the city’s position as an international cultural hub, while also offering a more research-driven perspective shaped by academic inquiry.

By bringing together artists from different regions and backgrounds, it seeks to balance critical reflection with forward-looking exploration, pointing toward new ways of understanding visual culture.

This year also marks the fourth consecutive time that HKBU’s Academy of Visual Arts has partnered with Art Basel Hong Kong. In addition to the campus exhibitions, the Academy will set up a dedicated booth outside the main venue at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where Art Basel Hong Kong 2026 will take place from March 25 to 29.

Two panel discussions will also be held during the fair at the Exchange Circle, where participating artists and HKBU representatives will share insights on themes including “Between Images and Spatiality” and “Pictoriality as Mediators,” extending the conversation beyond the gallery space.

HKBU Parallel Exhibition of Art Basel Hong Kong 2026: “Between Image and Index”
Exhibition Period: March 19- April 12, 2026 (including public holidays; closed on Mondays)
Time: 1pm – 7pm
Venues:
1.  Koo Ming Kown Exhibition Gallery, Lee Shau Kee Communication and Visual Arts Building, Baptist University Road Campus, HKBU, 5 Hereford Road, Kowloon Tong
2.  AVA Gallery, HKBU Kai Tak Campus, 51 Kwun Tong Road, Kowloon