Recovery, healing, transformation—collectively and individually we are undergoing these interconnected processes in the post-pandemic era. Artists too are reframing their practices in light of recent experiences and reconsidering their relationships to place, identity, history, and community.
In our cover Feature, we look at the multimedia projects by Jes Fan, an artist whose reflections on the many historical and environmental changes in Hong Kong have inspired a new body of work using akoya pearl oysters. In’s New York desk editor Mimi Wong, Fan explains how his new series (2020–22) uses the oyster’s natural response to grow shiny nacre over the site of an infection. For Wong, Fan’s interest in the precious material reveals how “we can treat the wound as a site of healing—and as an adaption necessary for survival.”
