Artist and writer Susan Pui San Lok (often written as susan pui san lok) was born to first generation Hong Kongese-Chinese parents in Essex, England in 1972. Lok completed her education in the UK and established herself as an artist and academic exploring different themes including that of diaspora and challenging narratives of whiteness.
Artist, academic and writer, Susan Pui San Lok (often written as susan pui san lok) was born to first generation Hong Kong-Chinese parents in Essex, England in 1972. She completed a BA in Fine Art with First-class honours from the University of Leeds, Bretton Hall College (1991-94), followed by a MA with Distinction in Feminist History, Theory, Philosophy, and the Visual Arts (1995-96). Lok then completed a PhD in Fine Art (Practice & Theory) from the University of East London, between 1997 and 2004. Her visual art practice includes immersive installation, moving image, site-specific installations, sound, performance, and text. Her works are often temporary and open-ended, reflecting a deep interrogation of her themes, such as amnesia, archives, aspiration, diaspora, migration, nostalgia, place, translation, and witchcraft. Lok's methodology is recursive: it enables her works to re-engage and re-examine their own narratives. This approach creates a dynamic interaction with historical and cultural contexts, generating works that are visually striking, while offering many layers of meaning.
Lok regularly exhibits in the UK and internationally. In 2008 her solo show Faster, Higher was presented at the BFI Southbank Gallery, London. At the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017, she featured in The Diaspora Pavilion, a collaboration between the International Curators Forum (ICF) and University of the Arts London (UAL), which challenged the traditional concept of national exhibits in biennales. The project, which redefined the concept of ‘diaspora’ and its contemporary significance, was part of a 22-month mentorship programme giving a platform to emerging UK artists: Pui San Lok, Larry Achiampong, Libita Clayton, Kimathi Donkor, Ray Fiasco, Michael Forbes, Paul Maheke, Khadija Saye, Erika Tan, Barbara Walker and Abbas Zahedi, who worked with ten mentors: Sokari Douglas Camp, Ellen Gallagher, Nicola Green, Joy Gregory, Isaac Julien, Dave Lewis, Hew Locke, Vong Phaophanit & Claire Oboussier, and Yinka Shonibare MBE. In contrast, Lok’s solo 2019 exhibition, A COVEN A GROVE A STAND at Colchester's Firstsite, examined East Anglia’s history of witchcraft and the Witchfinder General’s witch hunts. By incorporating local handcrafts and multimedia, this exhibition paid tribute to the victims and blended remembrance and resistance. Part of the New Geographies project - a three-year endeavour to craft a new map of Eastern England, drawing on regional stories and perspectives about hidden or neglected areas – it reimagined local narratives. In her more recent exhibition seven x seven, held at the Glasgow International in 2021, both physical locations and digital platforms served as spaces in which to weave together historical and folklore explorations related to witchcraft, generating a tapestry that intertwined stories of gender and of historical witch hunts, stretching from East Anglia to Scotland. Through acts of commemoration, seven x seven emerged as a symphony of individual and collective defiance, echoing voices of resistance across time and space. In 2022, Lok made Centenary, a 34-minute spoken word work, exploring diasporic histories and Chinese migration over centuries, blending semi-fictional memories, while questioning the canon of whiteness. The work reflected on life in a postwar council housing on the Essex/London border while examining Hong Kong's history. Centenary was exhibited as part of Rewinding Internationalism at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Netherlands (2022).
In addition to her own practice, Susan Pui San Lok also has an extensive academic career. She served as a Reader and then Associate Professor in Fine Art in the Faculty of Arts and the Creative Industries at Middlesex University from 2013 to 2018. During this time, she acted as Co-Investigator on the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded project Black Artists and Modernism from 2015 to 2018, led by UAL in partnership with Middlesex University. In June 2018 she began as a Reader at the University of the Arts London (UAL) and was promoted to Professor in Contemporary Art, becoming Director of the Decolonising Arts Institute in October 2019. She has guest lectured at many UK institutions, including Birkbeck College and The Courtauld Institute, University of London; Royal College of Art; Sotheby’s Institute of Art; UAL Central Saint Martins; Wimbledon College of Arts; University of Leeds; and Winchester School of Art at the University of Southampton. Internationally Lok has lectured at Alfred University, New York and Reed College, Portland, Oregon, USA; Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, and HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University, Sweden. In 2016 Lok was a panellist at a Ben Uri event coinciding with Refugee Week, entitled Imagining Diaspora in the Age of Refugees. From 2021 she has led the three-year research project at UAL, Transforming Collections: Reimagining Art, Nation and Heritage. Susan Pui San Lok lives and works in London, England. Her works are held in UK public collections, including the Arts Council Collection and the New Contemporary Chinese Art Collection, University of Salford.