Friday Lates: Ming Wong in conversation

Ming Wong is our 2025 Artist in Residence. Wong’s broad practice across film, performance, painting and installation draws on the history of cinema, pop culture and speculative fiction to uncover the politics of representation. In re-staging scenes from world cinema in his films and performances, Wong has explored the ways both individual and national identities are coded and constructed.

In advance of a display of new work, currently being developed in response to the National Gallery’s collection, and opening early in 2026, Wong discusses previous projects with Priyesh Mistry, our Associate Curator of Modern & Contemporary Projects, and Annabel Bai Jackson, our Dorset Curatorial Fellow, touching upon issues including identity, linguistics, translation, dislocation and history.

Following the talk, join them in the galleries to explore one or two paintings that are acting as sources of inspiration for Ming Wong's new work.

Ming Wong (b. 1971, Singapore) lives and works in Berlin. His work contends with cinema and popular culture to consider how identity is constructed, reproduced and circulated. Through imperfect translations and reenactments of classic world cinema in which the artist plays all of the characters, Wong’s videos, photographs, installations, and performances uncover the slippages that haunt ideas of ‘authenticity’ and ‘originality’.

His recent performance piece ‘Rhapsody in Yellow’ has been seen at steirischer herbst, Graz (2022); Berliner Festspiele (2023), SpielArt Festival, Munich (2023), Kunstfestspiele Herrenhausen, Hannover (2024) and the Esplanade Singapore (2024). He represented Singapore at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009) with his solo exhibition ‘Life of Imitation’, which was awarded a Special Mention. His work ‘Life of Imitation’ is currently on display at Tate Modern.