Empty Set

Date
Sep 13 – Nov 23
Location
Para Site
22/F, Wing Wah Industrial Bldg.

677 King’s Road

Quarry Bay,
Hong Kong
Opening Reception
Fri, Sep 12
6–8pm

6:30–7pm
Pratchaya Phinthong in conversation
with Billy Tang

Para Site is thrilled to present ‘Empty Set’, a solo exhibition by Pratchaya Phinthong.

Phinthong’s first institutional solo exhibition in Hong Kong, ‘Empty Set’ serves as both an intervention and a stage—bringing together cultural workers, scientists and cross-disciplinary collaborators to pose questions, share critical reflections and explore futures shaped by the climate emergency. The exhibition acts as a catalyst for a larger project that will unfold throughout fall 2025 in and around Para Site’s space through site interventions, a symposium, a film programme and performances.

The exhibition uses the ‘empty set’ (∅)—a circle with a diagonal dash, an absence with defined boundaries yet containing no elements—as a guiding concept and a conceptual placeholder for ideas and discussions outside of rigid knowledge structures. ‘Empty Set’ creates a place for new possibilities, a literal opening of the exhibition space to the outside world. Walls, windows and other thresholds become elements of an experiential montage, edited into interventions that dissolve the fourth wall of the gallery and expose it to realities beyond.

‘Empty Set’ is curated by Billy Tang.

Installation Views

Exhibition Brochure

About the artist

Pratchaya Phinthong (b. 1974, Thailand) is a contemporary artist whose conceptual, research-driven practice examines themes of labour, migration, and economic systems. His work often invites active participation and blurs the boundaries between artist and collaborator. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘The Heat of the Empty Forward’, SCAI, Tokyo (2025); ‘No Patents on Ideas’, Singapore Art Museum (2024–2025); ‘Today will take care of tomorrow’, Barakat Contemporary, Seoul (2024); ‘The Organ of Destiny’, gb agency, Paris (2022); and ‘Extended Release’, The Art Centre, Silpakorn University, Bangkok (2020). Phinthong’s work has also featured in group exhibitions including the The Sharjah Biennale 16 (2025); Busan Biennale (2024); ‘signals…瞬息: signals…folds and splits’, Para Site, Hong Kong (2023); Singapore Biennale (2022); and ‘Global(e) Resistance’, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020–2021). Through his internationally exhibited projects, Phinthong continues to interrogate the global circulation of goods, people, and ideas, foregrounding questions of value, exchange, and social responsibility in contemporary society.

Support

         

Para Site Art Space is financially supported by the Art Development Matching Grants Scheme of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The content of this exhibition does not reflect the views of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The Hong Kong Arts Development Council supports freedom of artistic expression. The views and opinions expressed in this project do not represent the stand of the Council.