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What might the Forbidden City have in common with a bicycle once raced through Hong Kong’s streets, a stone shaped by weather data or a fish swimming through a digital aquarium?
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These unexpected connections unfold in A Day in the City—An Experimental Study of Things Across Time, a new thematic exhibition opening at the Hong Kong Palace Museum on Friday.
Presented in Gallery 7, the exhibition brings together nine Hong Kong artists working across painting, sculpture and multimedia. Drawing inspiration from the Palace Museum’s collection, their works create a dialogue between the grandeur of imperial China and the rhythms of contemporary city life.
The artists include Kasing Lung, creator of the Labubu characters, alongside Kila Cheung, Seth Hon Ka-chun and Tsang Hing-ling.
At the opening ceremony, Hong Kong Palace Museum board vice-chairman Tsang Tak-sing said the exhibition reflected the institution’s commitment to presenting Chinese culture through a contemporary lens. He added that Hong Kong had an important role to play in passing on and renewing Chinese culture while encouraging dialogue among civilizations.
A day across time
Guest curator Grace Cheng Sim-yee said the exhibition was built around creative exchanges between the ancient and modern worlds.
The idea of following the course of a single day makes the subject more immediate, inviting visitors to consider the traces of history and tradition hidden within their own daily routines.
Rather than treating cultural heritage as something distant or fixed, the exhibition looks at how objects, materials and human experiences continue to take on new meanings as they move across generations.
Puyi on two wheels
Painter and sculptor Kila Cheung turns to one of Hong Kong’s most recognizable objects from the 1980s: the compact bicycle commonly known as the “bullet bike.”
His work was inspired by an account of Puyi, China’s last emperor, who reportedly had a collection of around 20 bicycles and invited an accomplished civilian rider to teach him cycling tricks.
Cheung saw a connection between the young emperor’s enthusiasm and Hong Kong’s own cycling culture. Whether in the imperial court or on the city’s streets, riders have used bicycles and customized accessories to express their personalities and tastes.
The resulting work brings together two generations separated by time and place, united by the same youthful sense of freedom and fascination with life on two wheels.
Weather carved into stone
Multimedia artist Seth Hon Ka-chun takes a more technological approach, translating Hong Kong weather data recorded between 2000 and 2025 into five physical stones.
Displayed in a specially designed space that evokes the experience of looking through a microscope, the works explore the relationship between nature, technology and material culture.
Hon noted that modern computers rely on conductive materials such as gold and silver. In earlier times, the same substances were valued as ornaments and decorative objects. By returning attention to their origins in the earth, his installation connects the digital age with much older human relationships with stone and metal.
Fish beyond time
Visual artist Tsang Hing-ling explores a quieter form of continuity through fish.
Drawings are scanned and transformed into three-dimensional digital models before being released into a virtual aquarium, where they appear to swim freely.
Tsang observed that many of the fish found in Hong Kong waters today are visually similar to those encountered by people thousands of years ago. While cities, technologies and societies have changed dramatically, the creatures offer an almost timeless presence.
The work provides a gentle contrast to the exhibition’s other experiments with transformation, suggesting that some forms of life endure with remarkably little visible change.
A related workshop will allow participants to create their own fish drawings, which will be scanned and added to a shared digital aquarium.
A Day in the City—An Experimental Study of Things Across Time opens at the Hong Kong Palace Museum on July 31. General admission is HK$70, with concessionary tickets available at HK$35. Children aged six and under may enter free. Tickets are available through the West Kowloon Cultural District and museum websites, as well as the WestK WeChat ticketing mini program.
