solo booth with Square Street Gallery
Art Central, Hong Kong
25-29 March 2026
In a world of rapidly melting glaciers, the Ice Queen (a magical polar bear ice sculpture) frantically tries to preserve the icy world of Northlandia. A Walrus Magician, a Lone Wolf spy, and a lot of fat jumpy seal soldiers are here. Welcome to Northlandia, the only Arctic country in Michelle Fung’s fictional Orwellian world of 2084. Only anthropomorphic animals live here, though they face similar problems to us and there are G5 countries each with their own unique culture and own sets of problems.
Michelle Fung’s practice involves a fusion of styles, combining technique and research: continuously honing various techniques ranging from draughtsmanship to woodblock carving, reading rigorously about various countries’ histories and myths. She is a world-weaver, synthesizing all of the above to create the world of 2084. Her dystopian world narrative references are grounded in prolific research, and so her work strikes an odd balance between fantasy and being rooted in reality. Why construct a dystopian Orwellian world populated by anthropomorphic animals? Fung’s reflection on dystopia posits that ‘The ultimate utopia is dystopia. An extremely beautiful world will be riddled with flaws because humans themselves are full of imperfections, contradictions, greed, and other weaknesses.’ The dystopian world of 2084, then, offers a space to escape to and reflect upon whatever difficult aspect of reality we find within it. By using anthropomorphic animals, we escape from the confines of various categories and divisions we impose upon ourselves.
In the case of the current series Northlandia, at its core lies the exploration of greed and land, North and rest of the world, self-preservation in the face of climate change, resources, and geopolitical resource war. This is encapsulated by the quadriptych “Look at my icicles!” “Hey sis, Don’t be so Proud!” “The Treasures of this Country of Ice have gotta be enough for us G4 Countries!” (The Ice Queen + Princess Sadna + Lone Wolf), which provides the main narrative anchor within the exhibition. The Ice Queen is on the top left, carrying her glacier ice baby heir on her back raining magical icicles over Northlandia to stop the glaciers from melting. Her sister Princess Sadna looks up apprehensively and is posed sneakily as she is going behind Ice Queen’s back to try negotiate with the G4 countries. On the bottom left, sitting on the tip of the glacier mountain is the Lone Wolf, almost blending in with the blackness of the waters behind him, spying the nation.
The full prowess of Michelle Fung’s signature unique medium of woodblock painting is clearly displayed here. Fung's woodblock painting combines woodblock carving techniques with painting techniques, and drawing techniques. She combines carving, acrylic, acrylic markers and colour pencils according to the effect required. This leads to a rich tapestry of textures, ranging from the intricate carved patterns, painterly skies, and solid colours from the acrylic markers. Colour pencils provide softer details and colour gradients. The geometric patterns on the glacier mountains, which can also be found in the Ice Queen portrait piece, are Michelle Fung’s own interpretation of the standard traditional Chinese landscape painting styles of mountains taken from a Qing Dynasty landscape painting manual.
In “Come Little one, just Eat another piece of Ice and Grow up Fast.” (The Ice Queen), Ice Queen sits cradling her ice baby glacier on her throne of icy glacier mountains. Her fluorescent pink magical body is framed by a white halo. The pose references medieval Madonna and Child altarpieces, and she is further flanked by two biblically inspired angel figures. Rather than familiar angelic cherubs, these angels are curiously monstrous mouths (inspired by polar bear mouths) with feathered wings. They are more menacing in appearance. Perhaps they are harbingers of doom, a warning of what may come to be if the climate crisis remains unresolved and greed is prioritised over the Northlandia landscape. The Ice Queen nursing her glacier baby also mirrors the mother and child dynamic of the Madonna. The Ice Queen is magical and generates glaciers and icicles to maintain the Northlandia world around her. One might even ask — is she God within Northlandia? She is most certainly a creator within Northlandia and worshipped by her many loyal subjects. The way certain subjects hang their political leaders at home also parallels how religious imagery is hung at home, both a form of iconographical worship. In the case of the Ice Queen, there are similarities between both forms of worship at times, with subjects sometimes exhibiting blind faith in their leader. The Ice Queen becomes an icon, a goddess for worship in both the ‘religious’ sense and as the political leader of Northlandia.
In “This has gotta be the right amount of icicles for Northern Lights…” (Walrus Magician), the Walrus Magician’s psychedelic rainbow body reflects the colours of the Northern Lights that he is trying to harness. He has five eyes because he is a magician, the extra eyes signify his magical powers. Do they also mean he sees more, do they reflect foresight, the past, present, and future?
In any case, despite the magical extra sight (or lack thereof), Walrus Magician is frantically trying to come up with renewable fuel (harnessing the aurora borealis) to solve the melting glacier climate crisis. The body and whiskers are meticulously carved, while the Northern Lights are captured in colour pencil. The ethereal nature of the piece reflects Michelle Fung’s own emotional firsthand experience of the Northern Lights during her residencies at Longyearbyen, the Northernmost town in the world.
“Northlandia is as large as it’s COLD. Hope my eyes will do their job.” (Lone Wolf) Out of all the portraits of Northlandia inhabitants, only Lone Wolf sits with his back turned from the viewer. Perhaps also reflecting the sense of mystery he still holds as a stranger in Northlandia. Lone Wolf sits alone within a swirling blizzard storm, the marks fo the storm subtly expressed through the wood carving patterns in the background. This piece uses Chinese ink and some of the more calligraphic Chinese painting brushwork which can be seen both in the texture of wolf’s fur, and the movement of the wind in the dark stormy background. Lone Wolf was born with many, many eyes of different animals, the yellow eyes embedded on his back staring back at the viewer. He stands ever vigilant, hoping his eyes will spy out the secrets of Northlandia so the G4 can sneak in and steal their resources. In a way Lone Wolf stands for an unwilling agent within times of chaos, the darker tone and storm representing the darker intentions of geopolitical resource wars, greed and scheming for exploitation. His thousand eyes scrutinise everything, now latching on to the viewer. The viewer becomes a target of surveillance, forcibly dragged into this (fictional) geopolitical resource war and dark political intrigue.
On the left wall are the Ice Queen’s personally trained fat jumpy seal soldiers. They are just floating around, swimming. Beneath them are arctic fish guns that they use to defend Northlandia against intruders which shoot icicles. Unfortunately, they are quite ineffective since the G4 countries are all warmer climates and the icicles just end up melting instead. They are, also seals so they are by nature playful, and do not necessarily always do their job. So here they are, swimming around shirking their duties, blissfully oblivious and happy in spite of, or perhaps unaware of, the full direness of the situation. The arctic fish guns are often depicted in a style inspired by the Art Nouveau, which is characterised by the use of flowers, fruits and organic forms as motifs.
The style was chosen for its significance in advocating the beauty of nature, as a reaction against the rapid industrialisation of the late 19th century as well as attempting to bridge the gap between fine and applied arts.
What does the world of Northlandia offer viewers? A refuge to escape from reality? However, as Michelle Fung says: ‘Dystopia always reflects reality. It is not possible to be totally detached.’ The world of 2084 then, perhaps holds a mirror up to our reality, packaged in dark humour, surreal landscapes, and anthropomorphic animals. Like all speculative fiction, it offers a safe space for any of us to project our fears and reflections of the times, a space to imagine possibilities and solutions. The viewer is free to find parallels with their circumstances as much or as little as they would like. Despite the dark humour, there is always a sense of optimism in Michelle Fung’s works, a seed of hope. Afterall, how can one operate without a sense of optimism? Optimism is an incentive for action. Imagination, a key to survival, perhaps through Fung’s world of 2084 we may be brave enough to imagine and broach otherwise difficult topics through anthropomorphic animal avatars.
Curatorial note by Charmaine Tam