Ho Rui An (b.1990, Singapore) is an artist and writer working in the intersections of contemporary art, cinema, performance and theory. Across the mediums of lecture, essay and film, his research examines systems of governance in a global age.

24 Cinematic Points of View of a Factory Gate in China

4K video 24′ 45′′｜2023

Between 2013 and 2014, surveillance cameras were secretly installed in front of the factory gates of several Chinese companies which had been recently listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The so-called due diligence-based investment company responsible for the operation sought to use the footage to expose fraud by showing how the amount of activity at their factory gates fell short of reflecting the revenue figures reported by these companies. In 24 Cinematic Points of View of a Factory Gate in China, these images are resituated within a genealogy that extends back to the Lumieres’ film showing workers walking out of a factory gate. As narrated by a fictional filmmaker who has been approached by an unnamed American investor to review the surveillance footage through a “cinematic point of view”, the film spans over a century of European, American and Chinese cinematic history to examine how the Revolution that brought the workers back into the factory as its rightful owners would culminate in a contemporary scenography of late capitalism where there appears to be not enough workers leaving the factory.

Lining

4K video 26′｜2021

Lining examines the rise and decline of the textile industry in Hong Kong against the historical shifts in labour, technology and capital taking place between the then-British colony and mainland China between 1946 and 1997. Beginning with the movement of Shanghai’s cotton mills to Hong Kong on the eve of the Communist takeover, the narrative extends into the Reform era during which Hong Kong’s industrial base would in turn be displaced to the mainland, this time concentrated around the southern region of Guangdong. Weaving together archival material, interviews with former factory workers and managers and observational footage shot between Hong Kong and Guangdong, the film describes the transformation of Hong Kong from industrial to financial hub while tracing the material networks that connected the city to the mainland long before the official launch of China’s economic reforms.

The Economy Enters the People

2021–22
Lecture and video installation with digital prints on paper, conference table, office chairs, desk,

stool, book trolley, books, thermos flasks, cups, saucers and acrylic name plate holders

2027

HD video installation, loop｜2021

Asia the Unmiraculous

Lecture and video installation with digital prints on backlit film mounted on LED-illuminated acrylic, wallpaper,

books and magnetically levitated hand model｜2018–20