As various mechanisms and surfaces continuously influence our modes of visual perception, our bodies gradually lose the ability to directly sense light. Traditional photography captures, fixes, and preserves light with the aid of equipment. In this workshop, artist Chan Ting invites participants to set aside their cameras and phones and enter into a space of imagination. Stepping away from digital and AI-generated image, we will explore the body as the darkroom, consciousness as the developer, and "green light" as a unique and transient light source.
Green Fire Ceremony. Courtesy the artist.
From silver halide photography to digital formats, the popularisation of photography has transformed everyone into both photographers and viewers. However, long before photography was simplified as an imaging technology, it was closely intertwined with spiritual experiences and alchemical traditions. The historical threads of photography's invention in the 19th century connect back to the optical revolution of the 17th century. Over time, chemistry evolved from the esoteric knowledge of alchemy into an experimental science. Moreover, the roots of the act of "capturing the image of light" have an even earlier, more obscure spiritual origin.
Georges Didi-Huberman, an image historian, discovered that around the 9th century, Philothée le Sinaïte, a Christian mystic ascetic in the Sinai region, coined the Ancient Greek verb “phôteinographeistai” during his ecstatic spiritual practice. This verb is the ancient predecessor of the modern French verb photographier ('to photograph'). The term is rooted in the Greek word “phôs” (light) and describes an intense physical imaging experience: when facing the blazing sun directly, the human body transcends its role as a tool for seeing, becoming soft and translucent like wax, penetrated, branded, and reshaped by light, ultimately transforming into pure light without any concrete outline.
This overlooked prehistory of photography resonates with the discussion in Côte de Luciole by Taiwanese scholar Tsun-shing Chen who emphasises that the darkroom is not merely a technical space but a sanctuary in the darkness where memories and images await development. This luminescence serves as a self-sustaining, transient glimmer at the boundary, resisting domination by the strong light of day. The power of images lies not in firmly retaining light, but in safeguarding the gap in the darkness from which light can emerge.
Green is the wavelength to which the human eye is most sensitive in dark environments. In Chan Ting's research, it represents the faint afterglow following phosphorescence, the residue of military green pigments, the worn hues found on public facilities from Hong Kong’s colonial era, and the subtle yet persistent growth of moss. In this workshop, light is green, and green signifies more than a mere colour. It transcends the constraints of a colour swatch, pixel value, or measurable gradient. Green embodies the temperature of flame, the tremor in darkness, and the illusion that surfaces when one closes their eyes—an individual’s unique inner vision.
Documentation of “Fire Ceremony” at Next Door to the Museum, Jeju Island, South Korea, 2026. Courtesy the artist.
Workshop Sessions
- Green Fire Ritual
Participants will sit in a circle around a fire, observing its flickering light as it consumes itself and eventually fades. While photography strives to retain light, fire allows us to witness the birth, flickering, depletion, and end of light, thus reawakening our intuitive perception of it.
- Internal Imaging
Close your eyes. Under Chan Ting's guidance, withdraw your outward gaze and allow your consciousness to slowly recollect, develop, and generate images. We will engage the ancient imaginative faculty Phantasia so that inner images grow from the depths of consciousness. In this space, your body serves as the darkroom; you are the negative, the photographer, and the sole viewer. The green you perceive and the images you experience are unique and cannot be replicated. After this meditative experience, we will share these personal visual narratives together.
Event Details
Date and Time: 13 November 2026, 15:00–17:30
Venue: Fotografiska Shanghai
Number of Participants: 30
Participation Notes: Participants are encouraged to bring fresh flowers for the Green Fire Ritual. Refreshments will be provided during intermission and the sharing session.
This workshop is presented as part of Bloody Worm: Nomadic Bodies, Conscious Experience, and Embodiment Practice, a one-year process-driven curatorial project initiated by Yifei Tang. Supported by the Octone Foundation, the project launched in March 2026 at Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong), featuring artists Bo Choy, Chan Ting and Cici Wu. Taking the ars magna “bloody worm” as its core metaphor and methodological framework, the project examines how artists translate, reshape, and re-narrate lived experiences rooted in personal perception and historical-cultural genealogies, traversing multilayered cultural and contextual boundaries. Through cross-regional symposia, field-based research, and ongoing public practices, the project fosters an open, evolving, and long-term supportive network.
Presented in collaboration with Octone Foundation and Fotografiska Shanghai.
Chan Ting ( She / They, b. 1993, Hong Kong ) is a multidisciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, installation, sound, performance and video. Her works have exhibited and been collected both nationally and internationally including Hong Kong, Canada, China, France, Germany, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland. Her pieces are held in the Akeroyd Collection (HK), Hong Kong Art Continuum Hong Kong (HK), Vancouver Art Gallery (CA) , among others. Chan Ting’s ongoing chromatic research investigates the phenomenon of "Green" as a complex socio-political signifier within the urban fabric of Hong Kong and wider Asia. She interrogates a striking contradiction. On one hand, green is the color of combat and slaughter, a lingering ghost of military surplus. On the other, it is nature’s primary camouflage. By tracing its evolution from the battlefield to the mundane infrastructure of the contemporary city, she explores how the colour of green can function as a skin for contemporary existence. Her found-object sculptures are direct manifestations of this green skin. For Chan, this practice acts as a living, synthetic epidermis that creeps over contemporary living to organize the inorganic. It mimics the silent growth and infiltration of moss. This is an operation of rhizomes, a spreading network of queer vitality. Website: chan-ting.com
Tang Yifei is a curator and writer. Yifei's research interests centre on the metaphorical potential of bodies and embodiment, exploring biological, fictional, and more-than-human ecologies, particularly examining performativity and intersubjectivity both within and beyond cultural and social constructs across different time-space contaminations. Website: pseudo-yifei.org