Pacific Place, Admiralty

Art Basel is delighted to share Lanternfly Ballet, a newly commissioned site-specific work by renowned British artist Monster Chetwynd. The piece encompasses a large-scale installation that invites audiences to interact, explore and play within a fantastical world that features Hong Kong’s lantern bug and its associated misconceptions. The work is further activated through performances choreographed by Chetwynd specifically for Hong Kong, available for all to attend at select moments during Art Basel Hong Kong and beyond.

Lanternfly Ballet is on view from March 20 to April 6, 2025, at Park Court, Level 1, Pacific Place in Hong Kong.

Performances take place on the following dates and are open to the public, free of charge.

• Saturday, March 22, 3:30pm
• Friday, March 28, 1:30pm
• Saturday, April 5, 3:30pm

Lanternfly Ballet is supported by Swire Properties, the Official Partner of offsite Encounters, and is presented with Galerie Gregor Staiger, Massimodecarlo, and Sadie Coles HQ.

Titled As the World Turns, the Encounters sector for Art Basel Hong Kong 2025 is curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor.

Curator’s notes:

Monster Chetwynd’s Lanternfly Ballet transforms Pacific Place in Hong Kong into a surreal, shifting ecosystem—an arena of play, ritual, and choreography. This newly commissioned site-specific work is both a theatrical installation and a fleeting performance, where sculpture, sound, and movement collide to create an ever-evolving encounter.

At the heart of the installation are three monumental sculptures of so-called lanternflies—though the species Chetwynd focuses on is, in fact, a lantern bug, a leafhopper that neither flies nor illuminates. With its elongated, hollow head structure resembling a rhino horn, this enigmatic creature has long been misunderstood. Embracing these misconceptions, Chetwynd transforms them into a romantic narrative, weaving a departure from scientific fact into a more intuitive, theatrical vision. By leaning into these layered misunderstandings, Lanternfly Ballet invites audiences to reconsider the way attention is shaped—how curiosity and care for the smallest creatures can emerge not through imposed knowledge, but through wonder, play, and the slow return of human fascination. Resting on lily pads derived from Chetwynd’s collages, these figures hover between attraction and unease, mirroring the tension between spectacle and stillness that defines the installation.

The lily pads, formed through a bricolage of watercolours, cut-outs, and assemblage, extend Chetwynd’s distinctive handmade aesthetic. These layered surfaces are not merely platforms but pictorial landscapes, embedding elements of folklore, botanical illustration, and abstract form to create a shifting terrain for performance and participation.

At select moments, the installation erupts into live performance. During Art Basel Hong Kong, a duo of dancers will animate the space, performing a choreography devised by Chetwynd specifically for Hong Kong. The performance unfolds in two distinct movements, beginning with a central sequence that pays homage to The Ballet of the Enchanted Dragonfly from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s film adaptation of The Tales of Hoffmann (1951). This is followed by a duet that draws inspiration from Zizi Jeanmaire and Roland Petit’s The Little Mermaid pas-de-deux in the film Hans Christian Andersen (1952), extending the piece into a second passage of movement and atmosphere. As the score reverberates through Pacific Place, the dancers become extensions of the lanternflies, flickering between presence and disappearance, poised between control and abandon.

Beyond these activations, Lanternfly Ballet remains an open invitation, a work that encourages participation, reshaping itself through the movement of visitors. Residents, travellers, and passersby can drift into its orbit, free to step onto the lily pads, navigate its forms, and interpret its unfolding drama. The piece invites audiences to engage with change whether through movement, spectacle, or quiet observation, mirroring the transient, ever-unfolding nature of public space.

Chetwynd is among the most distinctive voices in contemporary art, known for their theatrical, collaborative, and often vivacious practice. The work—spanning performance, sculpture, painting, and film—draws from art history, pop culture, and ecological themes. Chetwynd’s installations frequently blur the boundaries between art and life, inviting audiences into worlds that are immersive and humorous. Premiering for Art Basel Hong Kong 2025, Lanternfly Ballet resonates with the Encounters curatorial theme, As the World Turns, reflecting on the cyclical nature of transformation and imperceptible shifts that shape our existence.

Lanternfly Ballet operates in a carnivalesque spirit, turning the iconic Pacific Place into an unpredictable, fantastical public stage for spontaneous movement and audience interaction. Chetwynd’s practice revels in absurdity, collective energy, and ritualised play, transforming the everyday into something strange and exhilarating: an invitation not just to observe, but to take part.

–Alexie Glass-Kantor, 2025.