Nikki Lam
(b. 1988, Hong Kong. Lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne)

Working primarily with moving images, Nikki Lam is an artist-curator whose work explores memory through the contemplation of time, space and impermanence. Her practice deals with the complexity of migratory expressions, with her current research focusing on artistic agency during cultural, social and political transitions within the context of screen cultures.

the unshakable destiny_2101, 2021 is the first in a trilogy of moving-image works by Lam. Transforming symbols of memories, protests and cinema, the trilogy contemplates nostalgia and the colonial gaze to speculate a different future through subjective and collective memories. In this first chapter, a woman is filmed moving within a sparse set which serves as a backdrop to the artist’s memories, histories and reflections. The film questions what happens to this body when it is forced far away from the context of Hong Kong, into liminality and performance; into un-belonging. A brief ode to the cinema of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai and Asian Futurism, this 16 mm film challenges the colonial nostalgia of Hong Kong in cinema, as it gazes upon memories and events where the personal meets the collective.

Lam’s work has been shown widely across Australia and internationally, physically and digitally, including at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and Pier 2 Art Center in Taiwan. With an expanded practice in writing, exhibition and festival-making, she is drawn to relational modes of art. Lam is currently co-director of Hyphenated Projects and Hyphenated Biennial, and curator-at-large at The Substation. She is the former Artistic Director (2014–17) at Channels Festival and has worked in many arts roles. She is currently undertaking a PhD (Art) at RMIT University.

This project was commissioned by TarraWarra Museum of Art for Victoria Together and is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria and The SUBSTATION. All political views suggested or depicted in this project belong to the artist-director only. The project does not represent views of its casts, collaborators or presenters.

the unshakable destiny_2101 appeared in Community Hall on 24 Mar – 2 Apr 2023.

Film credits
the unshakable destiny_2101 (2021)
16mm film transferred to 2K digital with sound, 5 minutes 46 seconds
Director/Writer/Editor/Producer: Nikki Lam
Cast: Ching Ching Ho
Cinematography: Bonita Carzino
Production Design: Scott Heinrich
Costume Design: Al Chan
Sound Design: Ben Harb
Colourist: Abe Wynen
Camera Assistant: Drew Collins
Lighting/Gaffer: Francis Healy Wood
Art Department: Andrew Huynh, Jaime Powell, Cheralyn Lim, Kelly Chan

Access information: Please note this film’s subtitles are created without matching dialogues.
Closed captions available separately to the subtitles.