Now, Hong Kong people are to run Hong Kong. That is a promise and that is the unshakable destiny.’ — Chris Patten, Last Governor of Hong Kong at the Handover Ceremony in 1997.
“She may not always remember, but she will always forget.” The Unshakable Destiny trilogy uses the scaffolding of memory to pull at the fictions of the self, as a witness to post-2019 Hong Kong.
The Unshakable Destiny (2021-2025) is a five-year modular moving image project on the spectres of Hong Kong. An exploration of memory, site and cinema, the trilogy contemplates art-making in the diaspora, as a witness to the slippery political context of a homeland from afar. Expansive in format and storytelling, _2101 (2021), Reprise / Release (2023) and Retrograde (2025) present a necessarily incomplete story of post-2019 Hong Kong diaspora. Always on the periphery, the trilogy shapeshifts as its homeland transforms, moving from a disappearing culture to its haunting and cyclical returns.
︎︎︎please contact artist for online screener
︎︎︎read: Artist Profile by Cher Tan, Art Guide Australia, June 2025
︎︎︎read: 5 Questions with Nikki Lam, Liminal, July 2025
︎︎︎read: Artist Profile by Oliver Giles, Zolima Hong Kong, August 2025
Image: Installation view at Primavera 23: Young Australian Artists, curated by Talia Smith, Museum of Contemporary Art MCA Sydney, 2023. Photo credit Zan Wimberley
Still from_0121, 16mm film transferred to 2K digital with sound, 2021
Stills from Retrograde, 4K digital with sound, 2025
Still from_0121, 16mm film transferred to 2K digital with sound, 2021
Still from Reprise, 4K digital with sound, 2023
Still from Release, 4K digital, silent, 2023
Stills from Reprise, 4K digital with sound, 2023
Stills from Retrograde, 4K digital with sound, 2025
Installation view at Only the future revisits the past, curated by Catlin Langford, Centre for Contemporary Photography, PHOTO 2024, Melbourne, 2024.
A city with a history of multiplicity, cultural theorist Akbar Abbas described Hong Kong as a ‘culture of disappearance’ at the time of the sovereignty handover of Hong Kong in 1997. He observed that Hong Kong, a city without agency, created a visual culture that was most potent when facing threats of vanishing. In an attempt to capture this fleeting cultural re-emergence of visibility following the 2019 protests, these films fabricated memories that echoed the anxieties of the time from within and afar, witnessing from the perspectives of diaspora. As the trilogy progressed, these films became records of a politically and culturally transformative time. Designed to be viewed in a modular format, the films can either be presented together or independently, linearly in a cinema or in an installation. Always fragmented and on the periphery, the variation in viewing format is part of the enquiry of multiplicity and instability in the diasporic experience. This trio of films embodied poetry and cinematic language influenced by Hong Kong cinema and ‘Hong Kong in cinema’ in a push and pull of colonial gaze upon a disappearing city.
The trilogy opened with the unshakable destiny_2101 (2021), a 16mm film and an ode to cinematic images that have shaped the representation of Hong Kong both from within and beyond the community. It drew focus on the tensions and misalignments between histories and cinematic tropes, colonial gaze and the migrant body. The film reflected on the aesthetics of Wong Kar Wai cinema and Asian-Futurism, with protest symbolism hidden in plain sight, as a response to censorship. While the project was set to challenge the colonial nostalgia of Hong Kong in cinema, the film gazes upon memories and traumatic events where the personal meets the collective in a cycle of devastation, contemplation and hope.
This was followed by Reprise / Release (2023), a feverish dream of nostalgia and grief. It takes the audience on a journey to its past, returning to a homeland that no longer exists, a memory now reserved only for cinema. Reprise is a series of dream-like sequences, creating haunting fragments of a disjointed narrative in an expansive and speculative world, a metaphor for an increasingly diasporic Hong Kong community. Cultural scholar Esther M.K. Cheung described Hong Kong as a ‘spectral city’ in cinema, where it is ‘about what is half seen, allegorically seen, or quickly seen.’ These echoes from the past haunt our present in a way that is impermanent, highlighting the gaps and slippages of the city’s historical narratives with their ghosty presence. Were they dreams, or did the events actually happen? Reprise (2023) expanded on this space between fiction and facts, memory and re-creation, while Release (2023) portrayed the decay of memory itself, together they responded to hauntological language of Hong Kong cinema to examine diasporic nostalgia as spectres.
The third and final chapter is a physical and metaphorical return to the haunting city itself. A two-channel, hybrid documentary shot in Hong Kong, Retrograde (2025), peeled off the scaffolding of memory and representation. On screen, performer Felix Ching Ching Ho from the first chapter was in conversation with the artist, at locations that held significance to the project and the artist. Part script and part documentary, the ghosts from the past—be it the city itself or personal memories—returned to multiply, fragmentise and refract the narratives at present. Through remembering, rehearsing and re-enacting, together they negotiated their relationship to Hong Kong, and journey through the creative process of making art adjacent to this relationship. Framing the city through the artist’s phantoms, the work returned to specific sites where memories were slippery and opaque. The destiny was always a return, even when it slipped through our memories. Seeing Hong Kong quickly, allegorically, and partially, it is a filmic haunting return and a conclusion that signals towards an uncertain future.
︎The Unshakable Destiny trilogy premiered as a feature screening at Sydney Film Festival 2025, and as an exhibition at Brent Biennial London (2025)
Selected Screenings & Awards:
Official Selection: Sydney Film Festival 2025
Best Audio Visual Project at Jakarta Independent Film Festival JIFF, Jakarta 2022
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 2021
GRRLHAUS Cinema, Berlin 2022
Official Selection: Revelation Perth Film Festival, Perth 2022
Incinerator Art Award 2021 Shortlist
Footscray Art Prize 2022 Shortlist
Wyndham Art Prize 2022 Shortlist
Selected Exhibitions:
Primavera 23: Australian Young Artists / Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2023)
Melbourne Now / National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2023)
Only the future revisits the past / PHOTO 2024, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2024)
Assembly / Centre for China in the World, ANU, Canberra (2024)
Primavera 23: Australian Young Artists National Tour / The Condensery, QLD, Noosa Regional Gallery, NSW, Cowra Regional Art Gallery, NSW, Goulburn Regional Gallery, NSW, Bank Art Museum Moree, NSW, Wangaratta Art Gallery, VIC, Latrobe Regional Gallery, VIC, Murray Bridge Regional Gallery, SA (2024-2026)
the unshakable destiny_2101
16mm film transferred to 2K digital with sound
5’46”
2021
Director/Writer/Editor/Producer: Nikki Lam
Cast: Ching Ching Ho
Cinematography: Bonita Carzino
Production Design: Scott Heinrich
Costume Design: Al Chan
Sound Design: Ben Harb
Colourist: Abe Wynen
Camera Assistant: Drew Collins
Lighting/Gaffer: Francis Healy Wood
Art Department: Andrew Huynh, Jaime Powell, Cheralyn Lim, Kelly Chan
This project was commissioned by TarraWarra Museum of Art for Victoria Together and is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and The SUBSTATION.
The Unshakable Destiny: Reprise / 迴
4K Digital with sound
13’26”
2023
Writer / Director / Editor: Nikki Lam
Producers: Nikki Lam, Faith Guoga
Cast: Sasha Leong, Rebekah Lin
Cinematography: Bonita Carzino
Gaffer: Corey Clement
Colourist: Sam McCarthy
Colour: Crayon
Production Design: Scott Heinrich
Costumes/MUA: Al Chan
Food Styling: Nikki Lam
Sound Design: Ben Harb
Sound Mix: Duncan Lowe at Infidel Studios
Exhibition Sound Mix: Jon Tjhia
Sound Recordist: Josh Peters
Still Photography: Leah Jing McIntosh, Abdul Yusuf
Production Assistants: Xen Nhà, Yasbelle Kerkow, Ari Tampubolon and Matthew Harkins
Stand-in: Kelly Chan
Special thanks: Marnie Badham, Phuong Ngo and Jaime Powell
The Unshakable Destiny: Release / 捨
4K Digital, silent
7’45”
2023
Writer / Director / Editor: Nikki Lam
Animation: Henry Lai-Pyne
Colourist: Abe Wynen
The Unshakable Destiny: Retrograde / 逆行
Two-channel, 4K Digital with 5.1 sound
29’24”
2025
Writer / Director / Editor: Nikki Lam
Producer: Nikki Lam
Cast: Ching Ching Ho and Nikki Lam
Narration: Rebekah Lin
Cinematographer: Bonita Carzino
Line Producer (Hong Kong): Chloe Leung
Colourist: Sam McCarthy
Colour: Crayon
2nd Camera Operator: Hana
Sound Recordist: Saturday Chu
Sound Design: Victoria Pham
Sound Mix: Jon Tjhia
Title Design: Jazlyn Fung
Assistant Editor: Antuong Nguyen
Translations: Felix Ching Ching Ho and Nikki Lam
Captions Assistant: Issac
Special Thanks: Ani Phoebe, Scott Heinrich and Leah Jing McIntosh
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
All political views suggested or depicted in this project belong to the artist-director only.
The project does not represent the views of its casts, collaborators or presenters.