Left the light on

Wai Ting Loretta Lau was born in British Hong Kong. She worked as a visual arts teacher for 7 years, witnessing big changes since Hong Kong handover to China from the UK colonization. In 2018, she established herself in Prague as a political performance artist. Her relocating made her join one of the most recent waves of diaspora of the post-80’s generation.

Her first performance on 4th June 2019 entitled “Letter to my people” in DOX – Centre For Contemporary Art, which pays tribute to Liu Xiao- bo, the only Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner, and to the deceased students who sacrificed their lives for the brighter future of humanity. The executor shaved her hair as a symbol of impending prison sentence. On 10th October 2019, she presented a public art performance – ‘Memory Eraser’ in the National Theater in Prague.

Recently, her projects comment with distinctive meditative-poetical methods on politically sensitive topics, spanning from the coronavirus crisis, through actual Hong Kong protests to the role of women in contemporary society. Her works are searching the boundaries between political and personal identities, which are now exhibiting throughout Europe and being collected by auction house Fabiani Arte in Italy.

A testimony of a Tiananmen Mother (June 4th Vigil in Prague 2021)

Mixed media performance.

You left the light on, your mother thought that you were studying the whole night. We continue your light, and not letting it blew. A testimony from one of the Tiananmen Mothers – Zhang Xianling, whose 19-year-old son died in the military assault in Tiananmen Massacre presented in a guided imagery performance that held in Jan Palach Memorial (The House of Suicide and the House of the Mother of Suicide) We hope to continue the vigil legacy from Victoria Park in Hong Kong to Prague, as well as to support the people in Hong Kong who were charged with illegal assembly from last year’s peaceful protest.