Connecting people through art 

We are thrilled to announce the premiere of I Witness, by artist Hao Jingban, at the Mori Art Museum. Join us for the opening and artist talk on December 3rd at 7 pm.

In 2021, the Han Nefkens Foundation, Mori Art Museum, M+ (Hong Kong), and the Singapore Art Museum established the Moving Image Commission. In 2023, the commission was awarded to Hao Jingban. The resulting work is I Witness, a three-channel installation in which the grief of those who have lost family members is recreated through physical performance — a bodily exploration of the expression of symbolic mourning.

Hao Jingban (b. 1985, Shanxi, China, lives and works in Yunnan Province) explores the distance between present and past, in video works based on the study of history. In a practice dominated by archival research, personal interviews, and performance, Hao makes works in documentary style that focus on individual and collective stories to reveal hidden historical complexities. Past themes include ballroom dancing in Beijing around the time of the Cultural Revolution, and films made in northeastern China during the 1930s, in videos that reflect the perspectives of knotty historical narratives, social movements, and cultural commentary. In recent years Hao has been a shrewd observer of contemporary political developments - including the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement - and their psychological impacts on the public, producing works that delve into these events and influences from a critical perspective.


Hao Jingban

Hao’s solo exhibitions include Hao Jingban: Opus One (Matadero Madrid, Spain, 2020), Silent Speech (OCAT Xi’an, China, 2019), Uninvited Guests (Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong, 2018), New Directions: Hao Jingban (UCCA, Beijing, 2016), and Over-Romanticism (Taikang Space, Beijing, 2016). Her works have been exhibited at institutions and art festivals including Frac Bretagne (Rennes, France, 2025), TANK Shanghai (2024), West Bund Museum (Shanghai, 2023), Arts West Gallery (Melbourne, Australia, 2023), 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane, Australia, 2021), 11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2021), Times Art Center Berlin (2020), Power Station of Art (Shanghai, 2019), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai, 2019), Times Museum (Guangzhou, China, 2018 and 2019), Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017 and 2019), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA, 2018), FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (USA, 2018), 11th Shanghai Biennale (2016), Kuandu Museum of Fine Art (Taipei, 2016), and Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (2015).
Prizes and awards include the SeMA-HANA Media Art Award (2021), the International Critics’ Prize at the 63rd Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (2017), the Young Artist of the Year award at the 11th Award of Art China (2017), and the Huayu Youth Award Grand Jury Prize (2016).