Feature Projects
Research-led Creative Incubation
2026 Festival
The 2026 Festival brought together three teams of scholars and island creatives for a brief incubation period. Marine biologists met with ceramicists; climate policy analysts with social designers; an island literature scholar hit it off with a dancer, woodworker, and bamboo-and-paper craftsman.
Over six months, they shared ideas from their respective practices and did fieldwork across the archipelago, focusing on two threads of inquiry:
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Inter-island Mythologies (travelling tales of deities, ancestors, legends, and spirits), and
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Tidal Beings (the creatures who live in, on, and around the sea).
These projects are the fruits of their collective labour and their ongoing dialogue.
Thematic Threads
Craft
Body
Myth
Becoming the Archipelago:
A Watery Practice
Catherine Li
Researcher
Waiyin
Creator
Louis To Wun
Creator
Emmy Sandt
Creator
Sne Roy
Creator
Cheung Chau, Lantau, Peng Chau (and Lamma, and Hei Ling Chau, and on and on and on) are often visible from each other’s shores, reachable by boat, connected by water. But this connection is more than the sea itself. It’s the salt on your skin. The fishy smell in the wind. The silty deltas that circulate water between sky, mountain, creek, and sea. It’s the people, creatures, and vessels splashing through and across it all. Here, flow and fluidity are a permeating force. Rather than simply seeing, exploring, or telling stories about the archipelago, this project asks: What does it feel like to be an archipelago?
Lamma-based scholar Catherine Li repositions Hong Kong as an archipelago, retracing the territory’s past and present through island literature. Mui Wo-based woodworkers Sne Roy and Emmy Sandt, Cheung-chau based artist Louis To Wun, and performer and marine ecologist Waiyin join her to create one shared work. Channelling their expertise in driftwood, zi zaat, island traditions, and body movement, their collaboration coalesces into a durational performance, experimenting with the fluid boundaries between land, body, and water at the tideline.
Tides
Ceramics
Paleobiology
Tidal Life Under the Microscope
Prof Moriaki Yasuhara
Researcher
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Xapa Lit
Creator
Ironshroom Pottery Studio
Creator
Marine creatures that once lived in the sea eventually decompose on the seabed and wash ashore. For scientists, these remnants are important keys for deciphering the past. They’re also invaluable tools for projecting the future of islands, seas, ecologies, and climates. Though these tiny beings and their underwater world are largely inaccessible to the average island resident, the traces of history found in their bodies can enrich our understanding of where we live today.
One of Prof. Moriaki Yasuhara’s broad scientific interest is the paleontology of ostracods—tiny creatures that can only be observed under a microscope. Their clam-like hard shells allow them to be preserved as fossils in the sediment for thousands or even millions of years. Through ostracods, Yashura traces changes in marine life in relation to climate and environmental changes.
For this project, Prof. Yashuhara and his research team have shared their insights with ceramicists interested in sediments and the sea: Lamma-based duo Ironshroom Pottery Studio, who craft pottery from indigenous island soils, and Xapa Lit, who transforms ceramic waste into biorocks for underwater habitat regeneration. Their creations are informed by marine biology research, extensive scientific records, and materials found both on the shore and in the sea.
Tides
Ceramics
Paleobiology
Design
Justice
Climate
Facing Island Climate Change, Together
Ho Wai Fun @ CarbonCare InnoLab
Researcher
Raven Ching @ Carboncare InnoLab
Researcher
Ricky
Yeung
Creator
Cheng Wing Chun
Creator
Small islands are vulnerable to climate change challenges like rising sea levels and environmental hurdles like managing marine litter and waste disposal from isolated geographical locations.
So, how are islanders tackling these issues, and how can we continue helping our neighbourhoods respond to climate change?
Community NGO CarbonCare InnoLab (CCIL) has long been assisting people from all walks of life in addressing climate change and seeking climate justice. For this incubation project, they spent time with Cheng Wing Chun, a Cheung Chau-based designer specialising in DIY and environmental projects, and Ricky Yeung, a Peng Chau-based artist who cares deeply about climate issues.