ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
藝術家簡介
Based in Hong Kong, Ashley Figuera (b. 2003) is a Filipino visual artist concentrating on documenting life & presence. With an additional interest in new media, she experiments in her works, practicing computer graphic & sound design to capture people & everyday environments.
Currently, Figuera has a focus in practicing experience design & curation. She sees art as a tangible means for people to connect and remember one another, challenging the short temporal existence of time and memories. She also has a special interest in exploring topics such as body image, identity, and community, chiefly deriving from her background as a young queer immigrant in Hong Kong.
HONOURS PROJECT
畢業作品
Single-channel video installation, stereo audio
6 minutes and 9 seconds
As a dialogue between a mother and her daughter, “Coming out” focuses on the hesitance and fear that queer-identifying people may face upon expressing their identity. The work was inspired through a series of conversations Figuera had surrounding the concept of “coming out”. Is it always the right choice to express this identity? Who should know it? At the end, is it really worth the risk?
While Figuera and her mother gaze at each other from across their living room table, the video & surrounding sound delves into Figuera’s inner mind, and at last, she comes out— except she doesn’t. Not to those who may truly need to know it, and thus, having not taken the risk after all.
PREVIOUS WORK
過往作品
Colored print on translucent wax paper, set of eleven photographs, 20 x 25 cm. 2023.
Is that really me? (2023) is a hanging photography series exploring the concepts of disassociation and body dysmorphia. It was inspired by a series of Figuera's untitled sketches on the topic, and demonstrated in print through experimenting with photographic overlays and color saturation. The eleven photographs depicted Figuera's perspectives at home and at HKBU's Communication and Visual Arts Building, either showing her as the subject or as the point of view for the onlooker. The disoriented sensation of the viewer is heightened by the prints hung up on the installation's ceiling, forcing the audience's view upwards in a typically uncomfortable position.
你今日睇到啲咩？
Installation, marker and A4 paper, 2024, size variable.
你今日睇到啲咩？What do you see today? (2024) is a "happening" (or experience) designed to invite students to focus on & draw their surroundings in HKBU. Developed with her fellow classmates, the core of the event was to introduce a brief respite in the busy lives of university students on campus. By sitting down in the constructed area with meditating music, Figuera and her peers intended participants to engage in not just the views they see outside of the glass windsor, but in the contributed drawings of other participants as well.
Curatorial experience design. 2024. Installation size variable.
Micro Capture, Macro Insights (2024) is a microscopic photography exhibition & installation space curated by Figuera, and co-presented by the Department of Biology. The transdisciplinary space implored viewers to take a close look at the microscopic beauty in irregular subjects like mold and insects, then engaged them in workshops to consider that if they were similarly scrutinized like these subjects, how would they want their beauty & identity to be recognized.