This 2002 retrospective, co-organized by the Organisation for Visual Arts (OVA) and Valentine Willie Fine Art, surveyed Wong Hoy Cheong’s output from 1996 to 2002, a period characterized by a shift from representational drawing toward multi-disciplinary installations and digital media. The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, featuring essays by Hou Hanru and Ray Langenbach, framed Wong’s practice as an inquiry into the “post-colonial context from a non-Western perspective,” specifically interrogating how historic narratives are constructed and maintained.

The works on display traced Wong’s navigation of “marginalized histories” and “community,” moving beyond the “stasis of painting” to engage with collaborative and interactive mediums. A centerpiece of the exhibition was the video installation Re:Looking (2002), which blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction by presenting a documentary about a fabricated “Malaysian Empire” in post-colonial Austria. By parodying the authoritative tone of television documentaries, Wong exploited the “problem of information in the cybernetic era” to expose the “unquiet irony” and complicity inherent in historical representation.

Langenbach’s essay, “Mapping the Cartographer,” underscored Wong’s role as an observer who “picks through” current debates to reveal the “post-colonial state” of a nation in flux.