YIM Sui Fong (Hong Kong) “Black Ghost Trail” (2025)

How can sound or sound play conjure memories or re-materialize feelings of a place? Inspired by the childhood experiences of a resident from the local Hakka village of Chuen Lung in Hong Kong during the 60s and 70s, this work explores his young life among natural and man-made elements, such as a stream from Tai Mo Mountain, a hill road full of wind and pine, and the surroundings of a graveyard. For city dwellers, the ability to interact, play, and sense various species seems lost. Can we reclaim this openness as a resistance to homogenized urban life? By taking sound as a carrier to weave together the past and present, and as a way to participate in the village memory, I use field recordings to document and reassemble Chuen Lung village. This includes searching for hints, creating games, playing, and wandering to elicit new reactions. The editing process acts like a recurring sound play, evoking ghostly childhood memories. * YIM Sui Fong is a Hong Kong-based artist and assistant professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong whose practice bridges socially engaged art, collective learning, and sound. Through participatory listening environments and sound-based installations, she activates memory and shared agency—drawing on oral histories, minor archives, and site-specific soundscapes. Her work frames sound as both a medium of resistance and a method of collaborative knowledge production. A co-founder of Rooftop Institute, she advocates for art learning as a mode of social engagement. She also serves on the board of HASS Lab, promoting artist-led approaches to social inclusion, and is one of the initiators of Ecologies of Participation, a transdisciplinary platform bridging practice-based creation with civic engagement. Recipient of the Hong Kong Arts Development Award for Young Artist (Visual Arts) and the WMA Masters Award, Yim’s practice exemplifies how socially engaged sound art can catalyze exchange, amplify the underheard, and rehearse new forms of collective memory.