Suspended between heartbreak and radical inspiration, artists Pak Sheung Chuen and Zunzi respond to moderator Vennes Cheng about how to make work in the face of political impasse. Both artists are particularly known for their work with Ming Pao, Pak in his long-standing column in Sunday Ming Pao and Zunzi's even longer-standing daily political cartoons. Drawing from Nightmare Wallpaper, a project initiated with Pak and then-Para Site curator Freya Chou, the speakers will discuss what it means to work within a despairing situation, what it means to create forms of evidence, and how observation figures into the temporality of the news cycle.

Zunzi has been a practicing comics artist for over 40 years. His works are now seen everyday in Ming Pao and Apple Daily.

Pak Sheung Chuen’s works often slyly alters the experience of everyday life. He explores the mental and social space that is structured in our perception of the world, and investigates the coincidence and arbitrary that bring to the fronts of reality and fiction. He places himself in various situations and adapts his writings as a medium, conceiving his works as actions or subtle manipulations of the regular course of events. Pak has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including San Antonio Artspace (2013), Liverpool Biennial (2012), Taipei Biennial (2010 and 2012), Biennale Cuvee 10 (2010), 3rd Yokohama Triennial (2008), 3rd Guangzhou Triennial (2008), China Power Station: Part 2 (2007) and 6th Busan Biennale (2006, 2016). His solo exhibition Page 22 is permanently installed in New York’s 58th Street Branch Library. His artworks are in the collection of Tate Modern, M+ Sigg Collection, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art and many others. He represented Hong Kong in the 53rd Venice Biennale in 2009. He currently lives and works in Hong Kong.

A scholar, researcher, writer, and independent curator based in Hong Kong. Vennes Cheng, Sau Wai is currently a Ph.D. candidate of Art History of The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Cheng’s research areas include Hong Kong art archive, archival art practices, and historical and mnemonic contingency. Her papers – "The Year of 1967, Mnemosyne of Absence in Leung Chi Wo’s works of Art" and "The suspended law and arbitrary border" were selected and presented at the 22nd Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies in Glasgow and the “Symposium: Borders Inside and Out: Representing the Border Across Cultures” organized by CUHK in 2018 respectively. In September 2019, her paper "Archival Plunge: Art-historic reenactment in contemporary Hong Kong" was selected to present for the “Aesthetics, Society and the Travels of Critical Theory” International Conference that took place in Beijing Normal University. Cheng’s articles on Hong Kong and Chinese contemporary art were published in Visual Art Archive in Asia, Yishu, and Hong Kong Studies. She gave a talk on art archive of Hong Kong contemporary art in Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018. Cheng is one of the selected emerging art professionals of Para Site in 2018. She is the curator of a solo exhibition of Hong Kong artist Lee Kai-Chung titled I could not recall how I got here that is a WMA commissioned project.