Gayle Chong Kwan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to a Scottish mother and a Chinese-Mauritian father in 1973. After initially studying history and communications, she eventually graduated with a PhD from the Royal College of Art, London in 2023. She works with photography and installation, utilising waste materials to explore unseen histories and contemporary issues, creating fantastical landscapes that interrogate the interplay between reality, landscape, and urban myths. Her projects engage with themes of colonialism, ecological impact, and the sensory experience of history and memory, offering a platform for socio-political commentary and environmental awareness.
Artist Gayle Chong Kwan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1973 to a Scottish mother and a Chinese-Mauritian father. She earned a BA in Politics and Modern History from the University of Manchester (1994), where she focused on Post-Colonial Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, followed by an MSc in Communications from the University of Stirling (1995), before she then changed direction and gained a BA in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London (2000). In 2023, she completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art, London. Her thesis, titled Imaginal Travel: Political and Ecological Positioning as Fine Art Practice explored the concept of 'Imaginal Travel' as a method to provide perspectives and possibilities for observing, modeling, and contesting aspects of political and ecological life.
Chong Kwan's work employs photography and installation to create fantastical landscapes from waste materials. These exist in a liminal space between imagination and reality, where discarded objects are transformed into beautiful and thought-provoking environments. Her art focuses on the complex interplay between landscape, collective histories, and the ambiguous relationships between reality, appropriation, and the myths of urban development and waste. She has declared, ‘I’m interested in bringing histories - particularly unseen or little known; temporary, sensory, felt, and lived – to life as a way of showing an amplified fuller picture of the past while highlighting contemporary issues’ (UAL).
Chong Kwan's work is a vibrant exploration of environmental and socio-political themes, demonstrated through a series of impactful projects which have taken place over years. Cockaigne (2004), one of her earlier works, is a series of large-format photographs that depict mythical landscapes constructed from foodstuffs, reflecting on themes of gluttony and the transformative impact of tourism on the landscape of Mauritius. The Grand Tour series, exhibited at ArtSway, Hampshire in 2009, explored the complex legacy of the historical Grand Tour within the framework of modern tourism's ecological and cultural impacts. Drawing from her experiences in Mauritius, it critiqued the disparities and environmental damages wrought by tourism, employing immersive installations that blended photography and sculpture. Chong Kwan’s exploration of consumption and its effects on cultural and physical landscapes is exemplified in Paris Remains (2009), in which she created a post-apocalyptic vision of Paris using discarded food from pavements, challenging viewers to consider the implications of waste and consumption.
In 2010, Chong Kwan was commissioned by Peckham Platform to create The Eyes See More Than the Heart Knows, a large-scale photographic work for the construction site at Peckham Space, integrating local memory and history into the urban fabric. Her engagement with the theme of waste and community continued in Wastescape (2012), an immersive installation at London's Southbank Centre, where thousands of used plastic bottles were transformed into a striking environment, accompanied by oral histories from communities in Moravia and London. In the same year, she documented discarded objects along the Thames Estuary in The Golden Tide, providing a poignant commentary on waste and environmental neglect. Also, in 2012, the exhibition Double Vision was commissioned by Peckham Platform to examine the interplay between memory, myth, and the sensory experience of food, further showcasing her ability to create complex, immersive landscapes.
Chong Kwan's Capturing Motion project, developed during her residency in Photography at the V&A (2019–20), explored an expanded concept of photography, engaging with the museum's collection through movement and participation, creating three-dimensional photographic collages to challenge and reinterpret the dynamic interactions between objects and viewers. Other major projects include Microclimate, Normany Hall (2017); Experiential Ecology, The Edge at Bath University (2019); and Island Life, Salisbury International Arts Festival (2022). Her exhibition, A Pocket Full of Sand (2023–24), presented by John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, and Film and Video Umbrella, delves into colonial histories, geology, and ecological deep time, connecting Mauritius and the Isle of Wight through moving image, photography, and sculpture, to explore themes of power, labour, leisure, and the ecological and historical impacts of colonialism. The Taotie at Compton Verney (2024) features new photographic works and bronze shrines created during an 18-month residency, exploring themes of sustenance, memory, and rituals through the lens of Chinese, Taoist, and Buddhist cultures, while engaging with the politics and provenance of museum collections. In the UK public domain, Chong Kwan's works is represented in the New Hall Art Collection, University of Cambridge.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Gayle Chong Kwan]
Publications related to [Gayle Chong Kwan] in the Ben Uri Library