Spoiled Systems, Slow Sabotage

SALOON Network presents Spoiled Systems, Slow Sabotage, a collection of eight video works that explores 'fermentation' not just as a biological process, but as a radical logic of transformation. Queering ecologies and infrastructures, spanning personal, biological, social and digital realms, these works unsettle fixed categories of identity and function.

Since its emergence in the 1960s, video art has become a crucial influence in contemporary art. With technological advancements, it has challenged the traditional notions of media and gradually evolved into diverse forms and experiments. Using moving images and manipulating time and space, artists create unique narratives in the virtual world. The works explore the concept of fermentation, examining its manifestations in the realm of digital art.

An ecology of relations merges where queerness operates not as identity alone, but as method: a way of bending, rerouting, and reimagining how worlds are built and sustained. This approach reveals a world where relationships unfold between bodies, machines, and more-than-human agents, proposing cross-species intimacies and alliances that resist extraction and mastery.

In Be Friend OK? (2019/2026), Jessie Tam reimagines food and friendship. Through a home-video aesthetic, she narrates the relationship between diet and geese within a site of migration, projecting the possibilities of relocation and relationship-building through the nexus of the personal and the ecological. Elisa Duca’s Dreams of Vending Machines (2025) imagines the autonomy and agency of objects when liberated from their functional significance in daily life. They emancipate themselves from the labour value assigned by humans, subverting urban routines and queering infrastructure. From where and how do dreams arise? Katrin Hornek’s Plant Plant (2022) examines the artificial nitrogen factory. Here, history is reconstructed and revisited within the digital realm. Human industrial development is inextricably entangled with interspecies ecosystems; the extreme of nutrient generation is exhaustion. Where ecology is unbalanced, a new order born of microbial fermentation is slowly emerging.

Meanwhile, the digital materiality becomes a metaphor, echoing the biological fermenting process, allowing us to learn the agency of algorithms as microbes, like the growth and decay of data in the digital realm. The process of digital fermentation breaks the narrative of linear time, creating a cyclical, non-linear spatiotemporal experience through errors and delays. These practices explore glitch as a rejection and challenge of the clean perfection of digital forms, AI hallucinations and file corruption are not viewed as failures but as fertile soil where meanings compost and recompose, and also a connection to queer theory.

Resembling a journal, Lee Sum Yi’s Real (2019/2026) records personal interpretations and observations of the ‘constant’. It reflects the relationship between personal narrative and the surrounding environment—a refusal and reinterpretation of normative laws.  Lauren Moffatt’s Compost (Flowers for Suzanne Clair) (2023) subjects botanical measurement imagery to a deliberate digital fermentation—stacking forms that exist between the organic and the artificial, responding to the worldview of the character in J. G. Ballard’s ‘The Crystal World’. Is this a refusal of current biological limitations, situated within the digital cosmos?

The fermentation process requires careful monitoring,  resonating with the care and slow process. Each work acts as both evidence and fable, rediscovering self-awareness and environment, reflecting and transforming everyday norms, approaching process as generative, unruly sites of insurgency. Ultimately, the care transforms into sympoietic experiment, leading to a superior summoning.

Bianca Kennedy’s Let Them Eat Cake (2026) is a collage culled from fond video footage. It humorously and satirically presents stereotypes and the cost of sustaining a spectacle of ‘sweetness’. In Bud (2023), Korallia Stergides employs the flower bud as a symbol, transforming a sense of collective self-care during a transitional period of growth, cultivating an eco-feminist mythology. Navina Neverla’s The Four Elements (2024) draws upon Shamanic and Buddhist frameworks. Through exploring diverse spiritual traditions and wisdoms, it attempts to seek contemporary resonance and transcendental connectivity.

Spoiled Systems, Slow Sabotage reimagines decay not as an end, but as a vital stage of renewal, a space where breakdown becomes breakthrough. The exhibition argues that whether in a jar, a body, or a server farm, from the microbial to the infrastructural, fermentation is the process by which the assigned order seethes, idles, and dreams itself otherwise ——giving rise, from the compost of the old world, to buds of unpredictable, entangled life.

This project is the result of an international open call within the SALOON Network and is curated by Alberta Leung, Jing Chin-yin Chong, and Kelly Chan of the SALOON Hong Kong board, together with Elisa Duca of the SALOON Berlin board.

Works in the exhibition include:

Elisa Duca, Dreams of Vending Machines, 2025, Video, 4 min 07 sec
Katrin Hornek, Plant Plant, 2022, Video, 28 min 18 sec
Bianca Kennedy, Let Them Eat Cake, 2026, Double-channel video, 6 min 25 sec
Lee Sum Yi, Real, 2019/2026, Video, 3 min 49 sec
Lauren Moffatt, Compost (Flowers for Suzanne Clair), 2023, 3D scanned video, 15 min 06 sec
Navina Neverla, The Four Elements, 2024, Video,  9 min 02 sec
Korallia Stergides, Bud, 2023, Video, 5 min 14 sec
Jessie Tam, Be Friend OK?, 2019/2026, Single-channel digital video, sound, colour, 07 min 49 sec

About SALOON Network

Founded in 2012, the SALOON Network is an international community of women-identifying and non-binary art professionals, now active across 16 cities worldwide. It fosters exchange, collaboration, and visibility for its members, who include curators, artists, journalists, and gallerists. Our activities range from private bi-/monthly meetings to public events such as studio visits, portfolio reviews, exhibitions, and panel discussions. We actively collaborate with other communities to promote inclusion, exchange, and trust among diverse networks. Committed to intersectional, decolonial, and anti-racist feminist work, we aim to create more visibility and equal opportunities, especially encouraging participation from BIPOC, cis and trans women, and non-binary individuals. Our membership is open to all who support our mission to center the experiences of women and are dedicated to dismantling systemic boundaries within the art world.

More about SALOON Network: https://www.saloon-network.org/

About SALOON Hong Kong
 
The SALOON Hong Kong is a pioneering initiative founded by Alberta Leung, Jing Chinyin Chong, and Kelly Chan, marking Hong Kong the first city in Asia to join the global SALOON Network. This vibrant hub is dedicated to fostering a professional yet intimate environment where arts and cultural practitioners can exchange ideas, develop dialogues and expand diverse perspectives.  As a dynamic metropolis with a diverse population and culture, Hong Kong boasts a rich tapestry of traditions, creativity, and innovation. Its thriving arts scene provides a fertile ground for collaboration and inspiration.  Engagement in the global network facilitates the exchange of forward-looking practices, encouraging innovation and excellence in the local arts community. The SALOON Hong Kong serves as a vital space for women-identifying art professionals to connect, share experiments, and offer support to one another in their artistic endeavours. 
 
More about SALOON Hong Kong:  instagram.com/saloon.hongkong

About The Artists and Curators (In Alphabetical Order)

Curators

Kelly Chan is a cultural strategist and independent curator working at the intersection of experimental cultural platforms, cross-disciplinary collaboration and community-building. Her practice focuses on initiating experimental projects, fostering collaborative practices and engaging diverse communities through inclusive and accessible cultural frameworks. She is currently Director of Pavilion Hong Kong and formerly Development Manager of Para Site.

Jing Chin-Yin Chong is an independent curator, art administrator, researcher and co-founder of the curatorial platform Arts Collective. She has previously worked at art institutions such as Hong Kong Arts Centre and Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, as well as experience in galleries and various art projects in the Asian region. Chong’s recent research explores cultural influence, artistic practice, transdisciplinary exchange and collaboration in the context of contemporary art. Chong was a curator-in-residence at Delfina Foundation in the 2022 summer season, and was selected for the Emerging Curators Project at the Power Station of Art, Shanghai in 2018.

Elisa Duca is a Berlin-based artist whose multimedia installations examine transcultural experiences and post-migrant identity. Her practice invites a rethinking of binaries—digital versus real, global versus local, human versus other-than-human—to explore the possibilities of in-between spaces. Trained as an actress and a graduate of DAMS at the University of Bologna, Duca has received grants from the Goethe-Institut, the Capital Cultural Fund, and the Berlin Senate. Her work has been shown at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Haus am Lützowplatz, and Sophiensaele in Berlin, and internationally at Gallery 1 Shanthi Road (Bangalore), Eaton Workshop (Hong Kong), and SET UP Art Fair (Bologna). In 2025, her work was presented at KINDL Berlin and the IFA Berlin technology fair.

Alberta Leung is an independent curator and researcher who focuses on overshadowed cultural phenomena, bridging different narratives through art, science, and technology. She emphasises storytelling to contextualise overlooked experiences and reflects on contemporary digital society through micro-narratives. In 2022, she founded Size Variab;e, an online art platform that explores alternative approaches to exhibition-making, further fostering collaboration and experimentation in the spirit of digital nomadism.

Artists

Katrin Hornek lives and works in Vienna. Her practice engages with the paradoxes of the Anthropocene, interrogating how capitalism, colonialism, and extractivism are written into the body of the Earth. Through installations and multimedia works, she asserts the entanglement of nature and culture, arguing for more complex ecological formulations. Hornek’s work has been exhibited at Belvedere 21, Vienna (2025), Secession, Vienna (2024), the Riga Biennale (2020), and Kunsthalle Wien (2019), among others. She is a recipient of the Outstanding Artist Award (2025), the Msgr. Otto Mauer Award (2021), and the Theodor Körner Award (2013).

Bianca Kennedy lives and works in Berlin. Her practice spans animation, video, virtual reality, and found footage to dissect everyday relationships, social norms, and human behavior. Kennedy has exhibited internationally at institutions including HEK Basel (2025), Gropius Bau (2024), SCAD Museum of Art (2021), and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2024). Her work has also been featured at the Sundance Film Festival (2020). She is a winner of the LOOP Discover Award and the TOY Berlin Masters Award.

Lee Sum Yi is an artist and writer whose practice, rooted in conceptual inquiry, explores the relations between humanity, materiality, and language within urban daily life. Often working with text, sculpture, and site-specific interventions—such as exhibiting cement sculptures and poems in a Cheung Chau bookstore—their work invites layers of viewer interpretation and coincidence. Currently self-studying German and preparing a second solo exhibition for 2026, they believe an artwork is a mere representation, with all connotations manifesting through the viewer’s will.

Lauren Moffatt works across 3D software, game engines, and mixed media to explore the unstable border between inner worlds and external environments. Her practice employs photogrammetry and world-building to create speculative ecosystems where perception, memory, and non-human intelligence collide, as seen in projects like Chorcorallium and Flowers for Suzanne Clair. Moffatt treats technology as both instrument and interlocutor, foregrounding digital error and emotional testimony. Her work has been shown internationally at institutions including ZKM, Palais de Tokyo, Matadero Madrid, FACT Liverpool, and the Sundance New Frontier program. She studied at UNSW Art & Design (AU), Université Paris VIII (FR), and Le Fresnoy (FR).

Navina Neverla is an Indian-Austrian artist based in Vienna, working at the intersection of performance and time-based media. She is the founder and artistic director of MovingImageMovingBody, an association for contemporary arts and holistic practices. Her site-responsive works have been presented at venues including Museu da Agua, Lisbon (2024), MuseumQuartier Wien (2022), and Kampnagel, Hamburg. Neverla holds an MA in Dance: Creative Practice from Trinity Laban, London (2015) and a diploma in Film & Photography from HfBK Hamburg (2013). She is a recipient of funding from the City of Vienna and the BMEIA, and was a prize winner at the Bionic Dance Festival (2020).

Korallia Stergides is an interdisciplinary artist based in London. Her work spans film, performance, and animation, exploring themes of ecology, care, and myth through an ecofeminist lens. She graduated with an MFA in Fine Art Media from The Slade School of Art (2022), where she presented her film Myam Mwam Meow Miaow Mam Ma, a recipient of The Sarahbande Foundation Graduate Award. Stergides was selected for New Contemporaries (2023-24), exhibiting at Camden Arts Centre, London. She recently artistically directed the Opening and Closing Ceremony of Cyprus International Film Days (2025) and completed a residency with Beyond Disdance Festival, Cyprus.

Jessie Tam is an interdisciplinary artist based in Manchester, UK. Her practice—spanning drawing, painting, sculpture, and site-specific installation—transfigures domesticity using household items and translucent materials to craft delicate scenes that evoke the fragility of everyday life. Her work cherishes residual or forgotten memories, exploring themes of belonging, displacement, and the socio-economic dynamics of the art world. Tam holds a BA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong (2018) and an MFA from the Frank Mohr Institute, Netherlands (2021). She is a recipient of the Eaton Fund (2025) and Freelands Foundation Artists' Bursaries (2024–25), and co-founded the artist-run collective Struggling Art Space.

Key Visual Designer

Stefanie Messner is a humanities scholar and designer. Alongside her research work as a research associate exploring the epistemic potential of digital methods in humanities settings, she works as a freelance designer and Creative Director on various projects. She has taught at the University of the Arts Berlin and has been supported by international travel grants; her work has received multiple awards. She studied General and Comparative Literature, Philosophy, Visual Communication, and Graphic Design.

Media Inquiry

SALOON Hong Kong
電郵：hongkong@saloon-network.org
IG: @saloon.hongkong