Isaac CHONG Wai (ACC 2024) is participating in the exhibition Life Rehearsals, with artistic directors Li Mu, Carol Yinghua Lu and curator Na Rongkun, at the Inside-Out Art Museum in Beijing, China.

As a contemporary art institution, Inside-Out Art Museum sees itself as an active participant in the social sphere. From this standpoint, our exhibitions consistently offer critical reflections on and responses to many of the urgent issues that shape contemporary life. During the dispiriting stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, we curated The Principle of Hope; in a time when meaning seemed to be crumbing, we reasserted the importance of Meaning; facing the threat of truth being obscured by the entanglement of technology and power, we curated When the Monster is Speaking; in response to the ossified state of artistic creation trapped in the shackles of power and capital, we initiated a call for Improvisation, and through It Always Sounds Somewhere, we brought the ubiquitous, flexible, and diverse practices of sonic creation into the museum, turning it into a front stage for action. At the heart of the Inside-Out Art Museum’s practice is a commitment to the human experience. Since its founding, and by chance, the museum has repeatedly held exhibitions and public programmes around April 2—World Autism Awareness Day. These initiatives aim to foster greater public understanding of autism and echo the original spirit of goodwill held by the museum’s founders: to make a modest contribution to the public good in both society and culture. Over time, this has become a tradition for the museum.