Eyes Vanishing into the Night

Route Twisk – Animal Tracks – Planes – Bats – Black Kite

Date: 18 Apr 2026 – 24 May 2026

Time: Wed to Sun 10:00 – 17:00

Location: Chuen Lung Village & Koon Man Space

Many years ago, a friend took the No. 51 bus late at night, travelling from Tsuen Wan to Sheung Tsuen. Slowly, the bus wound its way up the mountain road, crossing Tai Mo Shan from one side of the city to the other. As the bus drove through the darkest stretch of the road, flanked by towering trees, she caught a glimpse of a large shadow darting through the darkness outside the window, along with a pair of glowing eyes and powerful front paws. For that split second, human eyes and the forest eyes stared at each other. My friend had a hunch that those eyes belonged to a clouded leopard—a pair of eyes that had vanished from the forest since the 1940s.

This chance encounter marked a moment where the paths of animals and humans, of the past and the present, overlapped and intertwined. Taking this story as the starting point for the exhibition, we asked both people and the forest: ‘Have you ever heard of the clouded leopard that lived on this mountain long ago, or have you even seen it?’ They replied: ‘How can you be certain that those eyes belonged to a clouded leopard?’ So, armed with trail cameras and recording equipment, we followed the animals’ paths and the people’s stories into the forests of Tai Mo Shan. In our search for that vanished figure, we encountered dozens of Hong Kong newts crushed whilst crossing the road; black kites and bats circling through the tree canopy like airplanes; wild boars and red muntjacs strolling along the hiking trails…

We ask: how do human roads and mountain paths intersect with the trails of animals? How can we get to know this mountain and all the creatures that inhabit it anew, and how might we coexist? How would those vanished animals describe how their ‘home’ has changed? And how should we remember the animals that have long since disappeared from this mountain?

We are used to walking on paved roads or clearly marked mountain trails. In this exhibition, we try to use our imagination to find the criss-crossing animal paths within the dense woodland, or perhaps to catch a glimpse of a pair of eyes that have vanished into the forest.