Eric Fong: Seeing Beyond at Chinese Arts Centre 23rd January – 5th April

Chinese Arts Centre hosts an exhibition exploring the way society treats the body, medicine and disability.

London-based artist Eric Fong began his professional life as a doctor and the experiences he gained treating his patients continue to inform his work as a visual artist.

For his newly commissioned work Seeing Beyond, Fong explores the perceptual experience of visiting an art exhibition as a visually impaired person. To create an authentic experience, Fong has worked closely with a group of visually impaired art lovers from Henshaw’s Society for Blind People and has translated their testimonies into a video work that allows the viewer to experience their perceptions firsthand.

Alongside this Fong is also showing a series of still and moving images under the title Shanghai Remedies. Taking in both personal portraits and home medicine collections, Shanghai Remedies provides a fascinating look at the changing attitudes to medical issues in modern China.

Together the two pieces give the viewer a perceptive and sensitive insight into how the individual experience relates to wider social attitudes on the subject of the body.