PAVILION Hong Kong 2026: 11/F & 12/F, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Hong Kong

 

Ballad of My Own Demise by Cayetano Sanz de Santamaría is a triptych that weaves universal anxieties into Colombian-inspired allegories. Each panel unfolds within a charged space where animal instinct and human reflection blur into a state of uneasy absurdity.

 

At its centre, a flying fish emerges from a granadilla, a fruit traditionally associated with fertility and abundance. Here, the granadilla becomes a metaphor for generative thought, while the fish materialises as an intrusive force, embodying the burden and unpredictability of imagination itself. In contrast, the Great Egret appears as a quiet, stabilising presence. Drawn from the wetlands of Colombia, it functions as a watchful guide, suggesting a fragile clarity that attempts to organise and contain this mental turbulence. Bananas anchor the composition as symbols of tropical abundance, yet their presence is laced with tension, oscillating between nourishment and decay. This precarious balance is ultimately ruptured in the distance by the form of a nuclear explosion, a distant but overwhelming force that introduces the spectre of global catastrophe and the fear of mortality.

 

Blending personal symbolism with broader existential concerns, the work constructs a psychological landscape in which imagination, anxiety, and external threat intensify, suggesting an unfolding loss of control as thought pushes its limits.

 

Part of an ongoing series, 水神 Water Deities, by Woo Jin Joo are works explore how myth, ecology, and folklore intertwine. Joo draws inspiration from the Korean colour theory of obangsaek (오방색), the traditional five-directional colour spectrum rooted in East Asian philosophy. The use of deep blue, vibrant red, golden yellow, white, and green is not merely aesthetic—it imbues the embroidered forms with elemental and spiritual resonance. Each colour traditionally represents a cardinal direction and natural element (wood, fire, earth, metal, water), reinforcing the divine status of these oceanic beings and situating them within a cosmological framework.

 

The flattened, ornamental forms and saturated surfaces echo the iconography and naturalistic representation of traditional Korean folk prints. The Lobster Man (龙虾人) is part crustacean, part human. Its unmistakable body sits atop body and arms; The Sardine Man (沙丁鱼人) -part fish, part human - a schooling fish, their streamlined bodies sit atop a human body; The Humphead (苏眉 人) -part fish, part human with thick lips and a hump on the forehead. Joo’s series proposes a speculative ecology—one where forgotten or overlooked marine life is reimagined as central to our spiritual and cultural consciousness. Through tactile freehand embroidery and symbolic precision, Water Deities offers a reckoning with nature’s divinity in the age of ecological crisis.