Melbourne Now: Nikki Lam
RMIT School of Art is thrilled to see so many staff, students and alumni featured in the NGV exhibition Melbourne Now.
Today we feature alumnus Nikki Lam.
Working primarily with moving images, PhD candidate 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.
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.
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.
Co-curated with Olivia Koh from recess — a Melbourne-based online platform showcasing contemporary moving-image works — this series will comprise daily screenings in Community Hall. Featuring all Melbourne-based filmmakers, the films highlight the city’s breadth of talent in art-filmmaking — an expanding arena of creative practice with a bright future.
Free entry
Booking is not required
The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Fed Square
Community Hall
Ground Level
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