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Chloe Loung

Artist and disability justice advocate Sophie Cheung Hing-yee was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she was 13. By 20, she had stopped taking medication, but her doctor would not declare her “recovered”, only that her symptoms were in “remission”.
“That label … it felt like a wardrobe I could never step out of, a long, dark youth,” says Cheung, who is now 42.
It is more than a label. Under the Hong Kong Mental Health Ordinance, individuals like Cheung could still be considered “mentally incapable” even when they are not receiving treatment.
This legal concept, which dates back to the British colonial era, is the focus of her provocative new exhibition at Eaton HK, titled “Decolonising Madness: The Naturally (In)complete Human”.

According to the ordinance, which was introduced in 1962, “mental incapacity” is applied to those suffering from a condition that renders them “incapable of managing and administering their property and affairs; or persons suffering from mental illness or psychopathic disorders or having significantly impaired intelligence”.
Cheung is best known for her ongoing “Erasing News” series, which involves transferring newsprint to erasers to challenge perceptions of irreconcilable contradictions and to respond to dramatic changes in Hong Kong society.
There are examples from that series in her new show, but most pieces are collaborative works Cheung has made with participants in her community art workshops in Hong Kong and London over the last decade. Articles and poems by writers such as Shiu Ka-chun, the late social worker turned opposition lawmaker, also feature.
In one piece called What are the Qualifications to be a Person with Psychosocial Disability in Hong Kong?, a CV template asks viewers to think about which “traits or skills” are necessary to “qualify” as a mentally incapacitated person. The answers, which range from a doctor’s certificate to fulfilling common stereotypes, are presented on a wall display with dried tangerine peel, or chun pei in Cantonese, attached.

“Chun pei does not rot,” Cheung says, referring to the ingredient that is prized in Chinese cooking and traditional medicine. “It becomes more fragrant over time. Can our experiences, even stigmatised ones, become like that – precious and aromatic?”
This theme of looking at health holistically in contrast to Western legal and medical frameworks also appears in Crystal-Pills (2025), a sculpture Cheung made with pills to look like a natural crystal. It is shown with texts related to the Law Reform Commission of Hong Kong’s 1997 findings on the concept of “mental incapacity”.
“These pills are a temporary intervention,” Cheung says. “But here, they become a crystal – a form that [can take] over a millennium to grow.”
The work asks whether the “health” defined by prescriptions and routine is a fleeting solution, contrasting it with slow, geological processes.

Cheung says she wants to highlight the disempowering impact of diagnoses related to “mental incapacity”; they strip away individuals’ agency and dignity and subject them to systems of guardianship. She also considers the rigid categorisation of mental health as a legacy of the colonial habit of pathologising natural human differences.
“In a world that labels systemic failures as ‘madness’, there are orders and laws that classify and assess who is a ‘complete’ person,” she says.
“But if we are all part of nature, then every life is, by its very essence, the same: naturally incomplete. Trees do not judge each other ‘disabled’ – they coexist, sharing nutrients in unconditional symbiosis.”
Her philosophy is shaped by the concept of “dis-identification”, she says – a strategy of neither fully accepting nor rejecting labels like “disability” or “recovery”, but reclaiming and reworking them.
For Cheung, art is a way to promote a more fluid understanding of the world, and “to dissolve the permanence of labels”.

“Art gave me a sense of freedom and a voice. It’s not about whether a condition is an illness, but about who has the power to define it as such,” she says.
As part of “Decolonising Madness”, on January 17, Cheung will hold a public conversation with scholars and cultural workers Chow Yiu-fai, Po-han Lee and Shiou-wu Wang to further dissect the intersections of law, disability justice and art.
“Decolonising Madness: The Naturally (In)complete Human”, Tomorrow Maybe, 4/F, Eaton HK, 380 Nathan Road, Jordan, Hong Kong, January 9 to February 1, Mondays to Sundays, 11am-9pm.


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Sophie Cheung poses among works at her “Decolonising Madness: The Naturally (In)complete Human” exhibition, which runs at Eaton HK until February 1. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Cheung stopped taking medication for schizophrenia at 25. At 42, she could still be considered “mentally incapable” under Hong Kong’s legal framework. Photo: Jonathan Wong

“What are the Qualifications to be a Person with Psychosocial Disability in Hong Kong?” features a wall display with answers to that question with dried tangerine peel attached. Photo: Joseph Chen

“Crystal-Pills” by Sophie Cheung. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Installation view of Cheung’s “Decolonising Madness” exhibition. Photo: Jonathan Wong

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“Windbreak” (2025), by Jaffa Lam at Shanghai’s Power Station of Art. Photo: courtesy of Jaffa Lam and Shanghai Biennale

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In ‘Decolonising Madness’ at Eaton HK, Sophie Cheung explores colonial-era definitions of ‘mental incapacity’ that still inform laws


In ‘Decolonising Madness’ at Eaton HK, Sophie Cheung explores colonial-era definitions of ‘mental incapacity’ that still inform laws.


Hong Kong artist challenges disability labels in new exhibition

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}In ‘Decolonising Madness’ at Eaton HK, Sophie Cheung explores colonial-era definitions of ‘mental incapacity’ that still inform laws

In ‘Decolonising Madness’ at Eaton HK, Sophie Cheung explores colonial-era definitions of ‘mental incapacity’ that still inform laws