How long is forever? In legal contracts, genetics, art, and our personal lives, we often employ expressions like “in perpetuity," “everlasting," "permanent," even "immortal." Yet the meaning of these terms is different in every situation and often alters in response to changing circumstances. Wong Kit Yi's new work traces this conundrum across history and into such current biotechnology fields as gene splicing and reverse aging. Works include sliding-box wall photograph pieces, double-sided drawings on hinges, a DNA sampling station, and a film structured in her signatures karaoke-inspired sing-along format, bringing together family lore, Hong Kong history, bizarre sea creatures, and the concepts of ownership and long-term leasing—all with an eye to what "transparency" means in these diverse but somehow deeply related contexts.
All Wong's work will be available for acquisition in two different ways:
1) you can buy them outright, and own them “forever,” or
2) you can rent them on a 99-year lease preserved in a paper contract and on strings of DNA that can last 700,000 years.
