“Chi Chi Master: Disability Art Residency Program” Open studio:
Feb 10 - Mar 2 (Tue - Sat) | 12-6pm
"Chi Chi Master: Disability Art Residency Program" is an art collaboration project presented by artist Clayton Lo and artist-collaborator Jeff Ng. Taking place this February, they will host a three-week residency and community outreach program at 41 Ross in San Francisco's Chinatown. In addition to showcasing the works of Hong Kong Disability artists, the program will invite visitors to explore the lived experience of blindness as embodied in festive rituals and cultural memory, ultimately broadening the imagination of Asian art, culture, and diversity.
The first week of Open Studio at 41 Ross will showcase recent literature on the concept of disability, reflecting on the life insights brought to Lo by the traditional Chinese “destiny culture.” During the residency period, Lo will lead a “Participatory Observation Workshop,” engaging in in-depth conversations with visitors.
During the Lunar New Year holiday period, Lo will host a series of performance art pieces in the vicinity of San Francisco's Chinatown, assuming the role of "Master Chi Chi," including artistic fortune-telling, New Year's celebration rituals, and more.
Throughout the residency, artist and collaborator Jeff Ng will document and explore these disability art performances, and present his discoveries at the exhibition venue, examining how these performances bring about reflections on different urban environments and their characteristics
Presented by CCC (Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco), we invite you to the artist-led reception on February 17, join the artists in a special exhibition walkthrough and conversation.
About the Artists
Clayton Lo is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is a visually impaired person with neurodiversity and has been involved in poetry creation, literary and cultural criticism, as well as literary magazine and community art curation in Hong Kong.
He has received numerous local literary and inclusive art awards, published personal poetry collections, art criticism collections, and research works on HK Inclusive art. He frequently promotes the knowledge related to Disability Studies and Disability Art in Hong Kong's art associations of Disability, community cultural development centers, RTHK, and other public media. He also serves as a director of art associations and an advisor for art accessibility projects, making him an outstanding Disability artist in both academic research and artistic fields in Hong Kong.
In 2018, he joined the curatorial team of the Hong Kong Haptic Art Festival and compiled a bilingual report "Brief History of Hong Kong Haptic Art Development" for the project, documenting the development of a comprehensive picture of a case of inclusive art in Hong Kong. Since the inclusive art development in Hong Kong is still in its early stages and receives little attention from the domestic academic community, he tries to explore this project with deeper academic and experiential exchanges with different experts. In the past two years, he has also initiated critical disability theory reading groups with a group of inclusive artists and graduate students. They have jointly published publications such as Crip Zine, focusing on promoting more disability-related art initiatives in Hong Kong and neighboring Chinese-speaking regions.
Jeff Ng, who comes from a design training background, has years of experience in commercial design, artistic photography, and community art documentation. He has participated in Clayton's project of book publishing, tactile art, and multimedia works, providing support in visual aesthetics management and documentary recording. Together, Jeff and Clayton now explore the concepts of artistic collaboration, that integrate visual disability, installation, literature, and tactile art, as well as cross-media creative methodologies.