“Salty, Wet” (2026) was a solo exhibition at Limbo, Margate consisting of two interconnected works exploring Hong Kong’s shifting collective identity under political change.
The first work features a tableau of salt-encrusted crabs emerging from collapsed scaffold forms, referencing the bamboo scaffolding that has long defined Hong Kong’s skyline and is now gradually disappearing from the city. The salt is infused with Chinese medicinal herbs associated with healing and resistance. Drawing on Lo Ting, the mythological ancestor of Hong Kong said to live between land and sea, the crabs’ transformative shell moulting is used to treat them as living archives.
The second is a diptych video documenting my visit to Yim Tin Tsai, Hong Kong’s last remaining salt field, exploring the often hidden history of salt production and its importance to the city’s identity.
“Salty Wet 鹹濕”, my essay published last year in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, explores salt as both a material and metaphorical force within Hong Kong’s cultural, political, and sensual identity. (link)
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Alongside the exhibition, the PV featured a selection of short crab-centric talks from Crab Museum residents and friends, examining political and philosophical angles to crabs and their representation in iconography. (last photo)