Cross-Cuts: Uncovering New Narratives from the M+ Collections

The internet has given rise to unparalleled interconnectivity. With most things only one click away, audiences can easily discover content from different geographies, challenging institutions to look beyond the physical museum experience. As it becomes the norm for institutions to digitise their collections and launch online publications to engage audiences, the question becomes: how can we deepen this digital experience beyond what’s already expected?

Digital storytelling emerges as a compelling response, as both a narrative medium and a platform for spotlighting emerging local creatives. The previous digital commissions, Hong Kong as Mise-en-scène and Poetry on Film, which spotlighted emerging Hong Kong filmmakers, set the foundation for Cross-Cuts, our latest digital commission initiative. Consisting of five episodes, each one is a filmic adaptation of an original text commissioned by M+. Interdisciplinary in nature, scholars, art critics, artists, researchers, filmmakers, scriptwriters, animators, and art directors were invited to create these videos that decipher the complex narratives hidden in the M+ Collections as well as diverging narratives that carry a global resonance.

Drawing its name and spirit from the cinematic technique of cross-cutting—the rhythmic alternation between disparate scenes to establish simultaneity across time and space—Cross-Cuts takes works from the permanent collections of M+ as a starting point. Five intimate yet universal themes that reflect the contradictions of contemporary existence—the interplay between the everyday, the city, and beyond—are explored respectively through the series. By adopting the cross-cutting approach, the videos were created in a collaborative relay. In the initial phase, writers responded to the themes developed by the museum, resulting in a collection of texts that reference the M+ Collections—ranging from poetic meditations to critical, argumentative essays. In the second phase, the video-makers transmute these texts into visual form, spanning the stylistic spectrum from narrative shorts, video essays, and animations.

Can I Touch You Through the Screen?

Director: Kinglun Yeung | Writer: Zeng Hong

Conceived as the city recovered from the isolation of the pandemic, the theme of connection and disconnectedness explores the paradox of loneliness. While film scholar Zeng Hong investigates the affective experience induced from our encounters with technologies, filmmaker Kinglun Yeung translates these thoughts into dreamy yet lucid visuals paired with enigmatic voices that represent our collective transition from excitement, melancholy, and confusion toward a fragile new world of togetherness.

In Search of Other Worlds: The Cosmos and Beyond

Director: Nicola Fan | Writer: Yan Wai Yin

This segment examines our enduring faith in technology as a gateway to the sublime. Researcher-artist Yan Wai Yin discussed design, moving image, and visual art that represent our fascination in the metaphysical world. Filmmaker Nicola Fan’s visual response interpreted these ideologies through an introspective lens—unravelling a man’s adventurous childhood memories to reflect on the utopian hopes fuelled by projections on technological advancement.

Phantom of the Eternal City

Director: Isaac Shek & Sammy Wong | Writer: Iven Cheung

The theme evolves around urban development, architecture, and people in the city. Based on researcher Iven Cheung’s essay ‘Desolation and Recreation’, the narrative short explores the cycle of growth and decay by following a woman revisiting the ‘playground’ of her youth, positioning us as silent observers, much like the city’s own children. Animator Isaac Shek illustrates in his shifting colour palette across four chapters to visualise the dramatic metamorphosis of urbanisation—from the excitement of expansion to the quietude of ruination.

Dimensions of Identity: Fragments, Borders, and Transformation

Director: Wong Fei Pang | Writer: Chan Sai Lok

Centring on identity and its formation, the theme explores the impact of borders beyond the physical on individuals and the society. In his writing, artist-critic Chan Sai Lok investigates the roots and routes that affect the becoming of artists and their practices in his essay ‘We are all scattered individuals on the journey’. While filmmaker Wong Fei Pang elaborates his interpretation of identity through a montage of fragmented bodies, cultural signifiers, and iconic landmarks in his reflective video, posing a vital question: how is identity constructed?

In the Space of Trauma

Director: Steve Chen | Writer: Evelyn Char

Intended to address the elusive nature and subjective qualities of memory, this piece also discusses the collective experience of being haunted by history. Art writer-scholar Evelyn Char explores the circulation of trauma in historical locations through her discussion of Southeast Asian art in the essay ‘Summoning Spirits in the Traumatic Space’; and filmmaker Steve Chen, drawing on his background in architecture, translates this into a fictional horror short that leads us to multiple spaces. Through the story of a woman whose father has disappeared, the video exposes how cultural spaces can activate ‘ghosts’ of the past, mirroring the psychological experience of living within history.

As with Hong Kong as Mise-en-scène and Poetry on Film, Cross-Cuts continues to build M+ as a platform for supporting emerging talent. We hope that Cross-Cuts will inspire more collaborations between creators across disciplines and M+ to push the boundaries of storytelling. Cross-Cuts also invites audiences to join us in the ongoing conversations about visual culture and treating cultural objects as a living script—one that is perpetually subject to re-editing, re-interpretation, and re-imagining.