Movana Chen: Questioning the Line

An evocative blend of performance art, movement and sculpture

In the radical Questioning the Line, Movana Chen and a group of dancers form living statues that move, breathe and enter into an improvised dialogue through movement, periodically emerging into stillness as they explore their relationships with one another and with the audience.

Presented in the Print Room Studio to a maximum audience of just 60, this intimate work brings together performance, media, installation and sculpture. Seen in London for the first time, Questioning the Line is the latest live performance in artist Movana Chen’s ongoing Body Containers series, in which dancers perform within interconnected wearable sculptures.

Maps become not simply a backdrop, but part of the work itself: shredded cartographic imagery is transformed into Chen’s Body Containers, embedding questions of territory directly into the body. At its core, the work considers the body as a vessel for stories, histories and languages, tracing the visible and invisible boundaries that shape how we understand bodies, land and identity.

In a world increasingly shaped by division, displacement and ecological uncertainty, Questioning the Line invites us to reconsider the lines we draw and imagine a more interconnected way of being. It is an act of remembering our shared belonging to the earth, and our responsibility to care for it.

Created by: Movana Chen

Performers: Movana Chen, Francisco Borges, Nikolaï Denz, Alexa Papa, Tim Winkler, Mandy Kimm, Théïa Maldoom

Sound Design: Movana Chen and Nikolaï Denz

With support from Burger Collection and the TOY Family.

Photos by Oleksandra Shakhnovska

Movana Chen

Based between Hong Kong and Lisbon. Movana Chen’s multidisciplinary practice is rooted in the exploration of communication across cultures, deconstructing and reconstructing books, dictionaries, maps and recently with travel documents as her material to create sculptural installations that weave connection between people offer messages of hope and togetherness, love and trust. Her work is a fusion of media, performance, installation and sculpture.

Her work has been shown widely, recently including at the Turkish Textile Biennial (2025), Hangzhou Triennial of Fiber Art (2025), M+ Museum, Hong Kong (2024), the 3rd Thailand Biennale, Chiang Rai (2023–24), CHAT 5th anniversary exhibition, Hong Kong (2024) and the Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2024). Chen’s works are included in the collections of M+ Museum, CHAT (Centre for Heritage, Arts and Textile), Hong Kong, QAGMA (Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art), Australia, The Burger Collection, Hong Kong and Switzerland, Galila Barzilai Collection, Belgium and the Hong Kong Heritage Museum.

Chen studied Fashion Design at the London College of Fashion, UK, and Fine Art at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Hong Kong.