ming wong: Dance of the sun on the water | Saltatio solis in aqua

A Roman soldier, Saint Sebastian was persecuted for his Christian faith and violently shot by archers. His story and image, as a young man pierced by arrows, has inspired artists across generations.

Artists have often used Saint Sebastian’s image as an opportunity to paint the nude figure and to test new compositions. Wong draws on works from the Gallery’s collection and the landmark 1976 feature ‘Sebastiane’ by British filmmaker Derek Jarman (1942-1994).

Wong’s film ‘Dance of the sun on the water | Soltatio solis in aqua’ reimagines the martyr’s narrative inside the National Gallery. Latin-speaking Roman soldiers are performed by Asian actors of different genders, alongside the artist himself.

Through these choices, Wong stages a dialogue between an ancient past and global present. Ultimately, various characters take on the saint’s iconography and are shot at with arrows, suggesting the possibility for any individual to reach an elevated cultural status.

This film contains instances of discriminatory language.