Spanning Venice and Shanghai, Wallace Chan’s Vessels of Other Worlds explores change, material, and what we cannot see. The artist reflects on titanium, time, and the exhibition’s move between quiet reflection and physical experience.
Wallace Chan’s Vessels of Other Worlds marks the artist’s most ambitious project to date: a dual-site exhibition unfolding in Venice and Shanghai and coinciding with the Venice Biennale. The exhibition spans the historic Santa Maria della Pietà and the Long Museum, bringing together a new body of monumental titanium sculptures that explore transformation, spirituality, and the passage of time. The project, curated by James Putnam, builds on Chan’s decades-long commitment to technical innovation and philosophical inquiry. The Hong Kong-based sculptor approaches materials as vessels for both experimentation and meaning. In this conversation with Elephant, he reflects on how these parallel exhibitions extend his lifelong pursuit of the unseen and the eternal.
You’re self-trained and began working with gemstones at a young age. After a period of monkhood, you returned to art-making with limited means. How did these formative experiences shape your approach as an artist?
Because I was self-trained, I learned directly from the materials, from work, and from life. I did not come through a formal system, so in one sense I had more freedom. I was not confined by a fixed method or school of thought. But it also meant that everything took more time. I had to find things out for myself, often through trial and error. That taught me patience, independence, and the courage to go into the unknown. My time as a monk changed something more inward. I gave away all my belongings, and when I returned, I no longer had the same contacts or resources. So I began again with more affordable materials, such as steel, copper, and concrete. That period made me more aware of what truly matters. It taught me empathy, and it taught me that creation does not depend on comfort. If the desire to create is real, you will find a way.
How did the use of titanium, a material that you describe as being “closest to eternity,” emerge in your work?
Titanium entered my work 25 years ago. I spent eight years studying it before I could truly master it in jewellery, and that eventually opened the door to large-scale sculpture as well. What drew me to titanium was its unusual nature: it is very light, very strong, and it does not corrode in the way iron does. It allowed me to think differently about structure, colour, and scale. I create for my work to outlive me. To me, titanium feels closest to eternity. So it was not only a technical choice. It was also a philosophical one. It gave me a material that could carry both my ideas and my sense of time.
You developed the “Wallace Cut,” a distinctive gemstone carving technique. How do you approach your titanium sculptures with a similar sense of technical invention?
I approach titanium in the same spirit that led me to the “Wallace Cut.” I begin by asking what more a material can do. I was exploring how light could create an illusion inside a gemstone. With titanium, I am asking different questions, but the impulse is the same: how far can this material go, and what can it express that people may not expect from it? Titanium is not an easy material. It is light and strong, but it is also very stubborn. So if I want it to feel open, delicate, or full of movement, I cannot rely on ordinary methods. I have to keep experimenting with tools, pressure, angles, polishing, and structure until the material begins to speak in the way I want. For me, technical invention is never separate from expression. It is not invention for its own sake. It is simply what becomes necessary when an idea cannot be achieved through existing methods. That was true of the Wallace Cut, and it is also true of my titanium sculptures.
You’ve cited The Garden of Earthly Delights as a point of reference. How do Boschian qualities manifest in your own vessels?
The connection to Bosch is not a literal one. I am not trying to recreate his world. What interests me is a certain sense of life in transformation, where forms are never entirely fixed. In Vessels of Other Worlds, the vessels seem to be organic, growing, opening, and changing. That is where I feel a closeness to Bosch. His world is full of movement, hybrid forms, and layered meanings. My vessels also exist between states—between body and spirit, between nature and imagination, between this world and another one.
You’ve spoken about learning from both nature and Western religious sculpture. When and why did these influences begin to converge in your work?
When I was a young carver, from 16 years old, I was already learning from nature, from plants, insects, water, movement, and the change of the seasons. At the same time, I was teaching myself by looking at Western religious sculpture, especially the marble saints and angels in Christian cemeteries. As that was the only place in Hong Kong where I could go and look at those sculptures for as long as I wanted. Nature teaches life, growth, and transformation. Religious sculpture teaches dignity, stillness, compassion, and the human body as a carrier. Over time, that connection became more natural in my work. I simply followed what felt true.
The Venice installation draws on the three sacred oils used in Catholic rituals. How did you approach working within such a historically and spiritually charged context as the Chapel of Santa Maria della Pietà?
I approached the chapel with humility and with respect. It is a place with history, devotion, and its own spiritual presence. So I did not want to impose something on it. The reference to the three sacred oils gave me a way to enter that context. What moved me was not only their role in Catholic ritual, but the idea of the vessel itself—a form that carries something invisible, something essential. That felt very close to my own thinking. In my work, a vessel is never just a container. It can hold memory, spirit, transformation, and time. For me, this was not about trying to merge two religions into one statement. It was about recognising that different traditions often ask the same human questions. Who are we? Why are we here? What lies beyond what we can see?
At the Long Museum, the vessels appear at a vastly enlarged scale, with one sculpture inviting viewers to physically enter it. How does the shift from contemplation (in Venice) to immersion (in Shanghai) alter the meaning of the work?
The meaning does not change, but the way people meet the work does. In Venice, the vessels are placed within the sacred setting of the Pietà Chapel, so the experience is more contemplative, more inward, and more closely tied to reflection. The space asks for a certain stillness. In Shanghai, the scale changes everything. The vessels rise to their full monumental size, and the central work, Growth, invites people to enter it. Once you step inside, the work is no longer only something you look at. It becomes something you move through physically. So I would say Venice is about contemplation, while Shanghai adds immersion. One is closer to prayer or meditation. The other is closer to direct experience. But they are still part of the same idea. Both are asking how a vessel can hold transformation, and how sculpture can carry us beyond ordinary space.
Both Venice and Shanghai are cities shaped by water, and water is a major metaphor in the two presentations. How does this geographic and symbolic connection inform the exhibitions? What kind of conversation do you hope emerges between these sites?
Venice and Shanghai are both shaped by water, and that is one reason they belong together for me. Venice floats on water, and Shanghai was formed by the river and the sea. Water holds, reflects, transforms, and keeps moving, and that is also the spirit of these vessels. The connection is both geographic and symbolic. Water becomes a metaphor for change, continuity, and passage from one state to another. I hope a real dialogue emerges between the two sites. Not only between two cities, but between two ways of experiencing the work. Art can connect two shores, and also our inner and outer worlds.
How do you hope audiences will engage with the presentations? What kind of experience are you hoping to create?
I do not want to tell the audience exactly what to think. I want to create a space in which they can bring their own memories, feelings, experiences and questions. If the work can open that space, then I feel it has done something meaningful.
