Sophie (b. 1983, Hong Kong) is a Hong Kong-based artist, poet, and disability justice activist. She received a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from RMIT and Hong Kong Art School. She completed an MA in applied anthropology and community arts at Goldsmiths, University of London in 2022, with her dissertation titled '(De)colonising Madness: Ethnography of Mental Health and Legal Capacity in Community Arts Practice between Hong Kong and Britain'.
Cheung experienced the power of art in self-actualization and the elimination of a stereotypical discourse in relation to her diagnosis with schizophrenia at 13 years old, and ensuing psychiatric medication from 1996 to 2004. In her early career, in Hong Kong, she devoted herself to community building and the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In 2015, Cheung published 'Disabilities CV: The Stories of the Persons with Psycho-social Disability in Hong Kong' which examines and re-conceptualizes the multi-faceted meanings of disability and the disability experience in an attempt to effect a paradigm shift towards social inclusion, challenging the dichotomous relation between barriers and resources. With her experience in human rights advocacy, she explores in-betweenness and paradox: acts of simultaneous addition and subtraction which are a transformative philosophy of life. Her work seeks to maintain a careful equilibrium of construction and disintegration. Reminiscent of classical painting, yet rooted both in contemporary social issues and personal history, her practice harnesses found objects in oblique reference to arte povera and mono ha. Her use of plastics delineates the passage of time and allows her to draw comparisons between the understanding of colour and art history in east and west.
Cheung was a finalist for the prestigious Sovereign Asian Art Prize 2023. Other awards include the first runner-up for the Hong Kong Human Rights Art Prize (2018), the Leap Initiative Hong Kong Emerging Artist Award and the Art Next Hong Kong Artists Award (Bronze) (both 2017). Her first solo show was Erasing Time at Ora-Ora in Tai Kwun, Hong Kong (2022), and Erasing Time: Backwards and Forwards (2023) was her second. Notable art fairs include Asia NOW Paris (2022 & 2023) and Art Basel Hong Kong (2023 & 2024).
‘I feel like something is missing because I still have not transformed my enthusiasm and reflections of my experience in disability justice advocacy through the trials and errors in my art practice, especially when it comes to my thoughts about “dignity”: How to affirm subjectivity and integrity?’ – Sophie Hing Yee Cheung
