Christine Ko and Louis Lim: Departure

Overview

In February, Brisbane's annual BrisAsia Festival returns for 2024 for 19 jam-packed days celebrating Asian culture, cuisine and art, as timed around Lunar New Year. City Hall's resident museum is getting in on the action, but it isn't just limiting its festivities to that period. Arriving with the start of the fest and running until June, Christine Ko and Louis Lim's Departure earns another iteration — and if you've seen it elsewhere before, it's always evolving.

Ko and Lim explore the migrant experience using kites as a symbol, with the Museum of Brisbane exhibition from Thursday, February 1–Friday, June 7 featuring family photos that have been turned into the flying objects. The number installed in MoB's hallway will change over the showcase's free run, as more are added based on conversations and workshops with first- and second-generation migrants.

To tell each person's full story, written transcripts are also featured alongside the kites, as are individual recollections — which you can explore online as well.

Ko and Lim are also MoB's artists in residence from January–May 2024, a program that has previously featured Dead Puppet Society, Anita Holtsclaw, Lawrence English, Tammy Law, Liesel Zink, Vanghoua Anthony Vue, Robert Brownhall and more.

Images: Louis Lim.