In his celebrated poem “À une passante” (usually translated as "To a Passer-by") from Les Fleurs du mal, Charles Baudelaire depicts a fleeting encounter amidst the cacophony of a Parisian crowd—an exchange of glances followed by an instantaneous, permanent loss. Walter Benjamin famously lauded this poem as the definitive example of "love at last sight." This sensation of "meeting only to part forever" was later conceptualized by scholar Ackbar Abbas in his seminal work, Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. Abbas utilized the term déjà disparu, interpreted in English as the "already disappeared" to characterize the prevailing social sentiment in 1990s Hong Kong leading up to the handover.

 

While déjà vu evokes a sense of uncanny familiarity, its opposite, déjà disparu, describes a sense of bewilderment toward things that vanish before they have even fully occurred. It is an experience where the speed of current events outpaces the capacity of the sensibilities to comprehend them. Today, this resonates with Gen Z, refers to those born between 1997 and 2012, who may feel a profound sense of heartbreak when encountering 1990s campus videos on their screens, feeling as though they have "missed out" on an era they never knew. This phenomenon is newly coined as anemoia, a term coined in John Koenig’s Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Often translated as "alienated nostalgia" or "virtual nostalgia," it describes a deep, collective longing for a time period one has never personally experienced.

 

"Daytime Dance Club" is Mindy Lui's first solo exhibition after completing her Master of Fine Arts program at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The exhibition's concept unfolds from the artist's memories: as a teenager, she went to a dance club to retrieve some items for her father. The club, devoid of song, dance, and libidinal energy, lay dilapidated and shabby under the daylight, stained and worn. Interestingly, the artist doesn't simply point to the emptiness after the fading illusion of revelry, but rather restrainedly tells us: I am filled with nostalgia for things I never possessed.

 

Her late father was a trader of vintage stamps and banknotes, and through his vocation, the nostalgia of an older generation is observed and reconstructed; notably, her emotional bond with him only deepened after his passing. Born in July 1997, the era of "horse racing and dancing will go on" represents a reality she never witnessed firsthand. In a contemporary landscape where discourses on cultural identity and gender roles are exhausted, the notion of an artist aloof from the world, where passion is confined solely to the work, has become a mythical relic. Given that this era never belonged to her, why the sense of loss for objects never encountered? Why the regret for time that never passed before her eyes? Through the mediums of drawing, video, and mixed-media, the exhibition presents the viewer with that precise moment of déjà disparu in that distant and elusive time and place.

 

In the mixed-media work Daytime (2026), security spikes, once formidable barriers designed to deter, are systematically smoothed out and repurposed. They are transformed into sculptures, exhibition light sources, and metallic lampshades tinged with hues of pink and green, evolving from an inaccessible, hostile presence into something at the same time tactile, functional and approachable. Once dulled, these cylindrical spikes resemble floral ornaments, allowing the celebratory light within to project through their negative space. One might easily draw a parallel to Kong Chun Hei’s Awn Stars (2025), in which caltrops, originally concealed roadside weapons, are blunted by plastic liquid film and arranged into star-shaped decorations. However, beneath their shared disinterest, systematic aesthetic, two different types of agency separates the two: while the latter leans toward a defensive agenda, Lui’s work functions more as a compensatory mechanism, a process of healing and reclamation.

 

In Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Ambassadors (1533), a distorted skull sits at the bottom center, rendered through anamorphosis, which means a warped projection that reveals its true form only when viewed from a specific lateral angle. Contrary to common understandings suggesting this was merely a display of technical virtuosity, it actually reflected the era's fascination with specialized optical tools and glass accessories that allowed both artist and viewer to produce and engage with such images. In her series of drawings titled Plain (2026), Lui employs precise control through the most fundamental medium of drawing to provoke a specific inquiry in the viewer’s mind: what exactly is depicted on these pieces of origami paper? Her process is a mental folding and unfolding: she folds white paper into forms like lilies, flattens the paper back out, paints a realistic lily onto that creased surface, and finally produces a sketch of that paper resting on a table. Much like Holbein, painters across generations have utilized tools to construct images. Perhaps what is most startling here is that, at a historical moment where the painting has been stripped of nearly all traditions and value, the artist quietly utilizes a transparent vanishing point as her anchor. Through subtle twisting and folding, she manages to gradually navigate her way out of the long-dominant plains of figurative imagery.

 

Australian neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath was invited to testify before the U.S. Senate on examining the impact of technology on youth, submitting extensive research and testimony. In his statements and subsequent media interviews, he stated bluntly that due to the ubiquitous adoption of educational technology and personal digital devices, Gen Z may be “the first generation in modern history with average cognitive abilities inferior to the previous generation.” Who exactly placed that first device in their hands? What they should have possessed by right was already overdrawn before they were even born. In the video work Dance Club (2026), upward-facing thumb tacks shattered on a blue-carpeted floor; a pair of black leather shoes treads back and forth, attempting to hammer the tacks into the soles with the force of each step. And who, precisely, left these thumb tacks on the ground? Fortunately, Gemini, the AI which powered by the Google multiple language models, informed me that "Gen Z's love for Chunky (platform/rugged style sneakers) has evolved from a simple desire for height into a form of visual art. This style isn't just about shoes; it's about a perfect balance of sophistication and a rebellious attitude." It seems that if the soles are thick enough, one can tread on spikes. Yes. Artists do. Dance with it.

 

The mourning pleasure of love at last sight, the persistent tension of an essential quiet quitting in the background. When the hollow shell stripped of its packaging, do we possess any magic? What remains certain is this: regarding the future that final glimpse of Hong Kong art as it moves beyond traditional nostalgia, I will not offer even a parting gesture of love.​

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Webpage of "Daytime Dance Club"

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​Dr. Wong Wai Yin

 

Graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a Ph.D. in Chinese Art History in 2024, Wong Wai Yin’s research focuses on Social Practice and Contemporary Art in Hong Kong and Gift Theory. As an artist, Wong’s conceptual practice included various media, such as painting, sculpture, collage, installations, and videos. She explored various themes, including autobiographical experience, episodic memory, and intervention with art histories.