Congratulations to All Finalists
Spoiled Systems Slow Sabotage - an International Female Artist Collaboration and the Saloon Network
During Art Basel week, SATA was honored to host a deep-dive panel discussion featuring Chin-Yin Chong, co-founder of SALOON Hong Kong, and Elisa Duca, a Berlin-based multimedia artist and board member of SALOON Berlin. The conversation explored the vital role of community building within the arts and the launch of SALOON Hong Kong’s first major international collaboration.
Building a Global Network for Women and Non-Binary Professionals
The discussion began with the origin of the SALOON Network, which was founded in Berlin in 2012 by curator Tina Sauerlaender to provide an inclusive platform for women-identifying and non-binary art professionals. The speakers highlighted how the network has expanded to 15 cities, fostering cross-generational connections between artists, curators, and researchers at various career stages. Chin-Yin Chong shared the motivation behind establishing the Hong Kong chapter, emphasizing the need for a space that balances professional development with a casual, supportive community for both local practitioners and newcomers to the city.
Fermentation as a Curatorial Metaphor
A central theme of the talk was the exhibition “Small Systems, Small Sabotage,” showcased at the Goethe-Institut Hong Kong library. The curators detailed how they utilized the biological process of fermentation as a radical logic for transformation. Rather than just a culinary technique, fermentation served as a metaphor for social change—messy, heat-producing, and transformative—reflecting the spontaneous and collaborative spirit of the eight video works presented by artists within the SALOON network.
AI as a Creative Collaborator
Elisa Duca provided a fascinating look into her multimedia practice, specifically her project “Magical Manti,” which integrates AI as an active participant rather than a mere tool. Duca discussed her approach to technology through a queer and feminist lens, purposely seeking out “glitchy” and “strange” AI-generated outputs that resist polished, dominant aesthetics. By merging AI sketches with physical sculptures and Augmented Reality (AR), her work creates “soft utopias” that challenge rigid identities and explore the “otherness” found in multicultural urban spaces.
The event concluded with an invitation to view the exhibition and a reflection on how these international networks continue to spark essential conversations at the intersection of art and technology in Asia.
About Guest Speakers:
Chin-Yin Chong
Chin-Yin Chong
Chin-Yin Chong (@jingyinc) is an independent curator, researcher, and co-founder of the curatorial platform Arts Collective and SALOON Hong Kong. She previously held roles at the Hong Kong Arts Centre and MoCA Taipei, alongside extensive project experience across Asia. Chong’s research explores the evolution of artistic practice and interdisciplinary exchange within contemporary contexts. A 2022 curator-in-residence at Delfina Foundation and an awardee of the 2018 Emerging Curators Project at Power Station of Art, Shanghai, she is dedicated to fostering collaborative networks and cross-cultural dialogue within regional and international art ecosystems.
About Guest Speakers:
Elisa Duca
Elisa Duca
Elisa Duca (@ducaelisa) is a Berlin-based artist whose multimedia installations examine transcultural experiences and post-migrant identity. Her practice invites audiences to move beyond binary distinctions—between the digital and the real, the global and the local, the human and the other-than-human—and to engage with the transformative potential of in-betweenness.
She studied theatre, film, art history and philosophy at the DAMS Institute of the University of Bologna while training as an actress. She received funding and grants from various Goethe Institutes, the Capital Cultural Fund and the Berlin Senate among many others.
Her work is regularly shown in Berlin, Germany and internationally, in 2025 it could be seen at Biennale für Freiburg and as an opening piece of the IFA Berlin, Europe’s biggest tech show.