Where Moments Gather 《一連串的剎那》
2025
Silk, cotton, metal frames, sound
Textiles: 76 x 259 cm, 76 x 264 cm
Hanging object: 90 x 70 x 49.5 cm
Sound: 1h 02’21’’
Collaboration with female weavers and Komunitas KAHE in Maumere
Ma Wing Man Mandy uses textiles in her artworks, participatory projects and performances to connect people across generations and abilities. In January 2025, she travelled to the art and culture collective Komunitas KAHE in Maumere on Flores Island, Indonesia, a place noted for its rich textile traditions. During her eight-week residency, Ma was received by Mama Lin, a skilled local weaver who taught her the ikat technique of resist dyeing threads before weaving. Knowing a Hong Kong artist was learning and practising textile crafts among the community, other local weavers also visited Mama Lin and shared with Ma the meanings of their traditional textile patterns, colour palettes and techniques, as well as the region’s history and culture.
Based on the knowledge gained, Ma created the ‘Flying chicken’ and ‘dancing people’ motifs to record her experience in Maumere. More new motifs were born from intimate workshops with the mama-mama (mother figures) weavers. Ma invited them to reflect on their identities, not just as weavers, but as women, mothers and cultural guardians. It was their first time designing a motif for themselves. Ma completed two woven pieces in her residency and a three-dimensional piece reflecting the ikat process after returning to Hong Kong. Accompanying the exhibited textiles are songs by the members of Komunitas KAHE, who often celebrate the joy of life with music.
Bubble Reveries《泡沫之城》
2024
Strings, beads, aluminium
Dimensions variable
Day and night intersect in the bustling Central district. From the commercial buildings teeming with people during the day, to the inebriated, sleepless streets when the lights are low, people are constantly busy, endlessly searching for the dreams in their hearts. Dreams are as ephemeral as bubbles—short-lived but enticing yet destined to dissipate. They oscillate between the transient and the eternal, the separated and the belonging, just like the hurried pedestrians in Central, always contemplating the relationship between the individual and the collective, the ideal and the reality, in modern urban life.
Bubble Reveries stems from the artist Mandy MA Wing Man's reflection on the dynamic flows and movements in Central. Wyndham Social, the exhibition venue, is located at the top of Lan Kwai Fong, connecting major streets like Wyndham Street and D’Aguilar Street, with a constant stream of passers-by. Taking this as the starting point, the artist, like a catcher, aims to capture the always-in-a-hurry pedestrians using woven webs inspired by dreamcatchers, hoping to retain their good dreams and ward off their negative emotions and nightmares.
This piece of work is created with the weaving technique of dreamcatchers, first filling in each hollow circle to establish independent web-like structures. The artist then carefully connects these isolated, dispersed circular elements resembling lonely individuals, forming bubble-like collectives. They support each other mutually, both isolated and interdependent, striving to absorb every ray of light in their fragile forms, faintly glowing, forming a stacked dreamscape and network. Each lonely dream, relying on one another, is stacked up to form a sturdy protective net, capturing all the more beautiful moments.
In Bubble Reveries the artist deliberately chooses to use iridescent threads that flash on and off in different lighting, like the occasional glimpse of spider webs in the sunlight. In the alternation of day and night, the changes in lighting can bring more facets to the work, with the lines glimmering in a rainbow of colours under the light, like a world wrapped in bubbles.
Weaving Moments《即織復跡積》
2024
Ribbons, Bamboo Bench, Railing
800cm(L) x 600cm(W) x 130cm(H)
Set in M+ museum public space, we invited visitors to weave with us — not just alone, but with someone across from them. To complete each line, two people had to exchange ribbon rolls, switch positions, and help each other reach the end.
At the moment where their paths crossed — where hands met and effort aligned — they would tie a bow onto the weaving.
A small, gentle knot. A fleeting collaboration. A quiet mark of presence and connection.
Over time, this growing textile became a junction of encounters — each bow a symbol of strangers becoming partners, if only for a moment.
Roundabout
2022
Recycled fabric and strings, aluminium, wood
Dimensions variable
Roundabout recreates the children's innocence and playfulness, allowing individuals and groups to reminisce about the excitement of childhood play and experience the tactile sensation of textile making. It is the meeting hub of people movement which invites immediate exchange via co-creation. The physicality and connotation of the artwork transforms over time- when we touch the fabric, our experience and imagination collide and connect. The visible and non-visible networks are interwoven in the communal playground.
Community Partners: St. Mary's Canossian School, Po Leung Kuk Lee Shing Pik College, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals Lok Hong ICCMW
Artist assistant: Cheung Hiu Tung, Gnin Chak Ho Ning, Wong Sin, Ko Mee Chu
Supported by: Green Ladies & Green Little, L'ÉCOLE Asia Pacific, School of Jewelry Arts
In the Presence of You II
2019-2021
Collected children’s wool fabrics
Dimensions variable
The wool sweaters are not only the marks of growing up but also the blessings from family.
Beyond the collection of kids’ wool fabrics - The imprints of growing up carried by the fabrics are dismantled and reconstructed into a collective and extending connection in order to share the wishes. As we physically explore through and within the artwork, we also share each other’s warmth, join our crossing paths, regain the playtime of childhood and finally create a whole new collective experience. Everyone is invited to explore together with the children, extending the blessings, sharing every single warmest and sincerest hug right here and now.
Supported by: Redress
23-year-old Hong Kong
2021
Made-in-Hong Kong sweater
49cm(l), 2cm(w), 33cm(h);
49cm(l) 2cm(w) 33cm(h)
The ship in Greek myths, wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens won numerous wars, was preserved by the Athenians to honour the heroic feat, for they replaced the old planks with new timber when one was worn or damaged. At the end, no original parts remained.
What if someone collect all the old parts and rebuild the ship elsewhere? How is the identity truly preserved?
(Swipe to see more)
24-year-old Me
2021
Artist's own woollen gloves
87cm(w) x 25.5cm(l)
I disassemble my former self and observe how "I" am formed. I dismantled my childhood woollen gloves one by one and reknitted new gloves. The memory of identity is reorganizing and extended. Time is being compressed and stacked, sense of warmth is interlaced, and the body is transformed. I try to investigate how the self is presented and what is its boundary.
In the Presence of You
2019
Collected wool from family and friends
Inkjet print on paper
Single-channel video, colour, sounds
Dimensions variable
42cm(w)x 59.4cm(l)
3’ 28”
The neps are parted from woollens; the woollens are parted from sweaters; the sweaters are parted from bodies; the bodies are parted from warmth. I collected the wool fabrics from my family and friends. The personal traces carried by the fabrics are dismantled and reconstructed into a collective connection. Hereafter, the fabrics rub the skin, generate warmth which circles between the body and the fabrics. Fabrics start to pill and neps start to appear, carrying the warmth, interweaving with one another, inadvertently.
Performance photos were taken by Olivia Jaques & Mark Li during Act Performance Festival- Zurich
In the Lack of
2018
Neps and threads from people connected with
A palm size
Berlin, Copenhagen, Geneva, Korvala, Milan, Munich, Stockholm, Vasteras, Zurich
I started missing steadiness and a place I can go back to.
I was unwillingly shifted to ten different apartments during my half-year exchange in Zurich, Switzerland due to lots of unpredictability and difficulties. The helplessness every time I moved from one place to another with all my luggage was beyond sufferable. The uncertainty before I moved into another place put me in desperation. I need a home.
For me, what builds a home is the people, the connection and relationship. I started to collect neps and threads, both silently and noticeably, from clothes of friends and strangers I met in anywhere at any time. I recognised the easy evanescence of the intangible links with people and their importance to providing comfort and steadiness. At the end of the day, it is the intimacy between two people in every single action helped me to find comfort, to connect happiness in an unfamiliar city.
So, am I home after all?
A Translucent Moment with You
2017
Paper, tracing paper, leaves
Dimensions variable
My vigorous handwriting left insensible markings on paper, only to share my modern Chinese poetries with people by reappearing the disappearing existence in every day. The imprinted poetries are about the subtle changes in a room that disappear every day and thus people can experience the delicate minutiae of everyday life.
Hidden Cubicle
2015
Cloth and plaster
Set of 3: 8cm(H)x 8cm(W)x 8cm(L); 8.5cm(H)x 8.5cm(W)x 8.5cm(L); 9cm(H)x 9cm(W)x 9cm(L)