MAM Collection 021: Hao Jingban

Hao Jingban (b. 1985, Shanxi, China, lives and works in Yunnan Province) explores the distance between present and past, in video works based on the study of history. In a practice dominated by archival research, personal interviews, and performance, Hao makes works in documentary style that focus on individual and collective stories to reveal hidden historical complexities. Past themes include ballroom dancing in Beijing around the time of the Cultural Revolution, and films made in northeastern China during the 1930s, in videos that reflect the perspectives of knotty historical narratives, social movements, and cultural commentary. In recent years Hao has been a shrewd observer of contemporary political developments—including the COVID-19 pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement—and their psychological impacts on the public, producing works that delve into these events and influences from a critical perspective.

The Barcelona-based Han Nefkens Foundation, Mori Art Museum, M+ (Hong Kong), and Singapore Art Museum partnered in 2021 to establish the “Moving Image Commission”, and in 2023, awarded the commission to Hao Jingban. In MAM Collection 021 we present Hao’s latest work, the 3-channel video installation I Witness, in which the grieving of those who have lost family members is recreated through physical performance, in a bodily exploration of the expression of symbolic mourning.

* I Witness was commissioned jointly by the Han Nefkens Foundation, Mori Art Museum, M+, and Singapore Art Museum.

Hao Jingban

Hao’s solo exhibitions include Hao Jingban: Opus One (Matadero Madrid, 2020), Silent Speech (OCAT Xi’an, China, 2019), Uninvited Guests (Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong, 2018), New Directions: Hao Jingban (UCCA, Beijing, 2016), and Over-Romanticism (Taikang Space, Beijing, 2016). Her works have been exhibited at institutions and art festivals including Frac Bretagne (Rennes, France, 2025), TANK Shanghai (2024), West Bund Museum (Shanghai, 2023), Arts West Gallery (Melbourne, Australia, 2023), 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (Brisbane, Australia, 2021), 11th Seoul Mediacity Biennale (2021), Times Art Center Berlin (2020), Power Station of Art (Shanghai, 2019), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai, 2019), Times Museum (Guangzhou, China, 2018 and 2019), Centre Pompidou (Paris, 2017 and 2019), Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, USA, 2018), FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art (USA, 2018), 11th Shanghai Biennale (2016), Kuandu Museum of Fine Art (Taipei, 2016), and Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art (2015).
Prizes and awards include the SeMA-HANA Media Art Award (2021), the International Critics’ Prize at the 63rd Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (2017), the Young Artist of the Year award at the 11th Award of Art China (2017), and the Huayu Youth Award Grand Jury Prize (2016).