Chung projects drone video of the show through a cracked glass partition, highlighting how perspective is critical to this exhibition – he is imagining how those inside shops with broken windows viewed the protests.

“They [those in the shops] are literally looking at the protests through shattered glass – you’re looking at something broken, through something broken,” he explains.

Applying the concept to his installation, he prompts viewers to become aware of their own shattered illusions and the prevalence of political, social and economic systems that have failed them.

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Chung has questioned the meaning of the celebratory lights before, in an exhibition called “Very Natural Actions” at Tai Kwun in Hong Kong last year.

“Neon signs, light shows, fireworks – in themselves they have no meaning; it’s imposed by the government, or whoever owns the show or sign,” he says. “You can give any meaning to anything as long as you have the authority over it.”

In Crippling Light (2019), part of the Tai Kwun show, Chung explored the motivations behind these celebratory displays – what and why are we celebrating? In Sweet Light (2019), meanwhile, an array of flickering neon lights recreated the attraction of urban lights and life, the glare from which gradually became oppressive within the confined gallery space.

Chung’s attraction to light began with a personal memory. His mother passed away when he was two, and upon visiting her grave one summer in Auckland on a cold and rainy day, he remembered the sky clearing up and there being an intense burst of orange light. While looking back through old albums, he found a similar orange hue in a photograph of his four-year-old self, standing next to his father holding his younger brother at his mother’s grave.

“It’s the first real memory I have, especially about my mother,” Chung says. “Even though I was so young, I can remember that exact moment. These were all just beautiful coincidences.”

He incorporated that photo into an early work, Orange (2015), above a blank orange video screen, which showed at 1a Space at Hong Kong’s Cattle Depot Artist Village.

Chung’s fascination with light evolved from the personal to the political. For “Wheezing”, he picks up on both the police and protesters’ usage of lasers to block vision during last year’s anti-government protests.

“They’ve weaponised light in a strange and strategic way. Without light you can’t see anything, but too much light is blinding. They’re blocking vision with something that is necessary for you to see.”

Another installation, Growl (2020), is split into two sections, each imbuing a different sensory experience and predetermined route for the viewer. In one, lengthy metallic ventilation pipes unravel from the ceiling releasing a biting chill; in the other, in jarring contrast, a wall drips with condensation, and the atmosphere is warm and humid.

By ripping out and exposing the silver pipes in the ventilation system, which Chung describes as the “lungs of the building, and by extension, city,” he reveals their fragility, showing “how corrupted these systems are, or how these systems exist in a corrupted city”.

“These are systems you never see. You never look into the AC system, but it’s vital to the existence of the whole city. You’re never fully aware of how they work,” says Chung, noting that if one fails, it endangers the existence of the body.

For the multimedia artist, Hong Kong has changed a lot since June last year.

Wheezing, until September 19, de Sarthe, 20/F, Global Trade Square, No. 21 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Hong Kong. Opening hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11am-7pm. Inquiries: (852) 2167 8896.