Spring 2025 Book Launch & Conversation
My Body Is An Incarnated Population by Oscar Chan Yik Long
BASEL Domushaus EG
PF25 2025 Programme
Book Launch & Conversation
BASEL
​
My Body Is A Reincarnated Population
An artist book by ​Oscar Chan Yik Long
Published by Bored Wolves
​​
Basel launch and artist conversation with Angelika Li (Co-founder and Director, PF25 cultural projects)
Thursday 22 May, 18:30–20:00
DOMUSHAUS EG, Pfluggässlein 3, Basel
18:30 Doors Open, installation by Oscar Chan Yik Long on view
18:45-19:30 Conversation
19:30-20:00 Q&A + more chats!
​
Conversation in English. Free admission.
​
The event will take place at DOMUSHAUS EG, Basel, on Thursday, 22 May 2025 at 18:30, featuring a conversation between the artist and Angelika Li, Co-founder and Director of PF25 cultural projects and curator of his first solo exhibition in Switzerland, 'To Sleep and Wake Unafraid', which opens at PF25 on Friday, 13 June. The discussion will reflect on Oscar’s artistic practice, the journey of the book project, and the conceptual process behind his upcoming solo. Together with the artist, new concepts for a cycle of ink paintings and installations are being developed to transform the PF25 space, continuing the lines of thought and emotional undercurrents traced in the book. As a prelude, Oscar’s earlier painting cycle, 'A Horror to the Eyes of All Men Seeking Faith' (2022)—a previous collaboration with Angelika—will be presented for the first time in Switzerland.
​
About the book
​
​
Heart. Compass, radar detector. Lost and anxious. Parents divorce. Respect the rhythm. Fallen angels, now my stomach is all butterflies.
​
In his artist’s book 'My Body Is a Reincarnated Population', Helsinki-based, Hong Kong-born artist Oscar CHAN Yik Long gives form to a pantheon of reincarnated souls embedded within him. Through ink paintings and distilled capsule texts, he maps a deeply personal cosmology of memory, trauma, and reconciliation.
​
His creative process was guided by the roll of a die, used to forge connections between individuals from past lives—parents, siblings, ancestors, friends, enemies, lovers—and parts of his present body. Who formed his throat? Who grew into his tongue? Who paired as lungs? Who became skin, muscle, bone, or blood?
​
At its heart, the book is a gesture of spiritual atonement, an effort toward physiological harmony for a body burdened by affliction:
​
'Through my artwork, I wanted to let the people within me know that, regardless of the tragedies or conflicts that divided us in the past, I have come to terms with everything that happened between us. I sincerely apologise, I express gratitude, I forgive and send love.'
​
Exhibition & Residency
BASEL
as part of the Art Basel VIP Program
​
Oscar Chan: To Sleep and Wake Unafraid
​curated by Angelika Li
​
Preview
Friday, 13 June 2025 from 17:00 - 20:00
​
Exhibition Viewing
by appointment only until 22 June
Click here to book your viewing or +41 7678 1 7678 ​​
Kindly note that your request is not confirmed until you receive a confirmation message from us
​​
Location
Enter Nadelberg 33 into Pfeffergässlein 25, 4051 Basel
​
Press Release click here​
​
Short Notes from the Curator
​
PF25 cultural projects is delighted to present 'To Sleep and Wake Unafraid', Oscar Chan Yik-long’s first solo presentation in Switzerland and the opening chapter of his two-part solo exhibition series, unfolding between Basel and Vilnius in 2025. This site-specific presentation, staged in a 16th-century building in the heart of Basel’s Old Town, forms part of PF25’s Spring Programme and features in the Art Basel VIP Programme.
Known for his standalone ink paintings and large-scale ephemeral murals, Oscar Chan Yik Long’s practice weaves together East Asian philosophy, mythology, and spiritual traditions with Western classical and symbolist influences. Horror cinema and global pop culture further infuse his visual language, bridging ancestral memory with contemporary experience. In recent works, Chan has focused on holistic understandings of the human body and mind in Chinese tradition—particularly the links between internal organs and core emotions: fear, anger, anxiety, sadness, and happiness.
Titled after a line from Ingmar Bergman’s 1968 film 'Hour of the Wolf', the exhibition reflects on the liminal hours before dawn—moments that stir deep emotional currents in both the conscious and unconscious. For Chan, these early hours resonate with those navigating complexity and difference in their lived realities, while also evoking a universal longing—and right—for safe spaces of self-understanding, healing, and growth. The exhibition contemplates the relationship between action and identity: how daily gestures and routines shape body and mind, and how these elements transform and influence one another. Drawing on Traditional Chinese Medicine, it explores the interplay between physical and emotional states.
A new cycle of paintings and installations, bearing the same title as the exhibition, introduces phantasmagorical figures drawn from Chan’s own mythology. At its centre stands 'The Fight between Dream and Nightmare' (2025), where two protagonists battle amidst a constellation of mythological beings, hybrid creatures, and wandering souls traversing cultures and time. These unfold across canvases and a large-scale textile installation suspended from the ceiling. This overhead piece evokes cosmological tension, drawing the gaze upward into a shifting constellation of motion and metamorphosis—reshaping the spatial energy of the room and immersing the viewer in a celestial experience.
​
Also shown for the first time in Switzerland is 'A Horror to the Eyes of All Men Seeking Faith' (2023), its title adapted from a line in the script of the 1990 film 'The Exorcist III'. Presented as a prelude to the new works, this earlier cycle revolves around decadence and distortion, embodied by fallen angels. Chan traces this degeneration to human greed and desire, often manifesting in acts of consumption, destruction, and disconnection from nature—driven by underlying fear. In 'Fallen Angels: Eve' (2023), a figure eliminates a creature from her own body, covering others with her hair while partially silencing her own voice—a gesture that signals dominance and the fear of losing power. This painting cycle sets the tone for the exhibition’s themes of vulnerability, ritual, and transformation.
The second chapter of this institutional series, titled 'They Always Look from the Imagined Above', opens in November 2025 at the Radvila Palace Art Museum in Vilnius, part of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. This will mark Chan’s first solo exhibition in a museum. The Radvila Palace Art Museum is housed in a reconstructed 17th-century palace built by magnates of the powerful Radvila (RadziwiÅ‚Å‚) family. The exhibition will feature new and existing paintings, animation, and a site-specific painting installation, continuing Chan’s exploration of mind-body relationships as articulated in Chinese medical and spiritual traditions. The title refers to the high vaulted ceilings of the exhibition space on the palace’s ground floor.
The series is a collaboration between Kunsthalle Kohta (Helsinki), PF25 cultural projects (Basel), and the Radvila Palace Art Museum (Vilnius), with the Basel chapter supported by sinokultur, Zurich. The production of new works has been made possible by a grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR).
​
​
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
​​​​
​​​​​​​​