She Moves

With the movement of water droplets as an expression of emotion, this work examines the rhythmic representation and texture of video as a medium.

Director / Ellen Pau
1988 / 2:40 / Video 8 / Single-channel / Sound / 4:3

Videoex Experimental Film & Video Festival (2023) 
31 Women Artists – Hong Kong Exhibition (2022)

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Drained II

The video comments on the materialization of the electronic image.  A brief segment of a stage performance is endlessly repeated spatially and temporally.

Director / Ellen Pau
1989 / 5:49 / V8 edited with Betamax / Single-channel / Sound / 4:3

Taipei Biennial (2023)
M+ Museum (2022)

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Diversion

Diversion focuses on the immigration flush of Hong Kong in 1990.  By combining footage from various sources – government newsreels of the swimming contests, educational videos on swimming, performance video of the sequence of a burning newspaper goat-head floating down a stairwell- the video is a personal reflection of a collective memory.

Director / Ellen Pau
1990 / 5:40 / VHS / Single-channel / Sound / 4:3

Hong Kong International Film Festival: (1991)
International Film Festival for Women: (Spain, 1992)

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Song of the Goddess

This work pays tribute to the love story between the two lead female Cantonese Opera performers, Yam Kim-fai and Pak Suet-sin. Their mirrored selves appear as strongly dualistic reflections referencing their love in real life, and also echoing what was acted out on the screen. 

Director / Ellen Pau
1992 / 6:39 / Hi-8 / Single-channel / Sound / 4:3

7th New York Lesbian & Gay Experimental Film/Video Festival (Mix) (1993)
Hong Kong International Film Festival (1993)
8th International Film Festival for Women (Spain) (1992)

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Movement #1/10

This video is a collaboration between Pau and the choreographer and dancer, Dick Wong. This is the first of a 10-part exploration of movement and space, orientation and disorientation.

Director / Ellen Pau
1995 / 5:25 / Hi-8 edited with SVHS / Single-channel / Sound / 4:3

The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (1996)
Container 96—Art Across Oceans, an exhibition within the Copenhagen Cultural Capital Foundation (1996)

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Recycling Cinema

A haunting allegory of reality, metaphysics and cinema, the work transcends the sociological, theoretical or formal conventions of cinematic practice with specific challenges to the uni-directional participation of viewing and linearity.  The work plays with the constructions of narrative and the act of viewing.  An edited version was exhibited in the Hong Kong-China participation in the 49th Venice Biennale.

Director / Ellen Pau
1999 / 11:42 / DV / Single-channel / Sound / 4:3

49th Venice Biennale (2001)
Videoex Experimental Film & Video Festival (2023)
Guggenheim Museum (2017)
OCAT Shanghai (2020)

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For:Give

For:Give celebrates the expressionism of hands.  A kaleidoscopic effect is applied to the image so that the hands’ caressing gestures create biomorphic forms, like plants or bodily organs.

Director / Ellen Pau
2003 / 02’36

Image Forum in Tokyo, Japan. (1999)
5th International/Video/Art/Festival in Lima, Peru (2000)
New York Independent Film Festival in New York, USA (2001)
MAAP Fest (Multimedia Art Asia Pacific) in Australia and Beijing. (2002)
25hrs (The Video Art Foundation) in Barcelona, Spain. (2003)
Sydney International Film Festival. (2004)

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52hz

 A unique whale named “52Hz” vocalizes at a frequency of 52 hertz, significantly higher than the typical calls of other whale species and it is believed to be unheard of by them, hence, was described as the “world’s loneliest whale”.  Pau poetically connects this unique whale to the stories of a sex worker, a YouTuber and school bullying. 

Director / Ellen Pau
2023 / 16‘19

Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF) (2022)
Sunpride Foundation: (2022)
VIDEOEX Experimental Film & Video Festival (Zurich, Switzerland) (2023)
Myth Makers—Spectrosynthesis III (Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong) (2023) 
2023 Taipei Biennial, Taipei (2023)