In the shadows, stories emerge—fleeting, subversive, and playful in form. For Lap-See Lam, the spectral quality of shadow play serves as both a visual language and a poetic meditation. Born from the rich tradition of Chinese folklore, shadow puppetry is believed to have originated over 2000 years ago during the Han Dynasty. Rooted in the interplay of light and darkness, it made its way westward through imperial trade routes in the 17th-century. Lam’s work channels this ghostly imagery, where figures emerge, linger, and dissolve in a state between reality and illusion. In drawing from the language of shadow play, Lam invites us into a realm where the intangible becomes vivid, where folklore and memory converge, and where light itself becomes a vehicle for storytelling.
Lap-See Lam: Shadow Play brings together works from the artist’s Altersea series (2022-2025). At the heart of this body of work is the Floating Sea Palace Restaurant, a three-storey dragon ship commissioned in the 1990s in Shanghai. Over its journey through various European ports, it lived multiple lives: as a restaurant, a haunted house, and now a floating ruin. The ship’s journey, propelled by stories and memories, mirrors the core theme of the Altersea works: the yearning for a constantly shifting, unattainable home.
Tales of the Altersea (2023) is an eight-channel video installation centered on this ship. The vessel, now sunken, meets its fate at the hands of Lam’s character, Hunger—an evil spirit who devours children. We follow twin sisters, Dahlia and Julie, on an underwater journey inspired by Cantonese mythology. Along the way, they encounter Lo Ting, a hybrid fish-human ancestor of the Hong Kong people, and confront various terrifying figures—such as a weeping emperor and wandering ghosts.
Floating Sea Palace (2024) expands on this world, offering a prequel to Tales of the Altersea. Lo Ting reappears in past and future forms, longing for his lost home, “Fragrant Harbour,” the phonetic translation of Hong Kong. The story is narrated by Singing Chef, a former cook on the dragon ship, as it encounters a storm in the North Sea, leading it to sink—setting the stage for Tales of the Altersea. For the exhibition at PHI, Lam has created an environment of bamboo inspired by the cultural and architectural history of Hong Kong and Southern China. The film is projected onto a translucent scrim that allows the spill of light and figures onto surfaces behind it. The bamboo scaffolding frames the screen, bringing Lam’s vision full circle–an immersive world of shadows, memory, and loss, where time and space continue to shift like the tide.
