This is A Free Country is a performative video work and visual poem that interrogates the fragile and often contradictory nature of liberty.

Originally created for the exhibition Hyphenated (2024) at Manly Art Gallery and Museum, the work explores the hybridity of identity, specifically through the lens of artists who weave language and text into their practice to navigate the spaces between cultures.

The work challenges idealised notions of freedom by juxtaposing personal reflections with a bilingual poem written in both Cantonese and English. The performance centers on the ritualistic act of repetition: the poem is handwritten 31 times, with each version spanning three sheets of paper.

The resulting 93 sheets were scattered across the floor during the installation—a physical manifestation of the daily, exhausting repetition of questioning one's own freedom. 

Through the imagery of confinement and the labor of writing, the work illustrates the disparity between the promised ideal of a "free country" and the lived reality of those whose identities and rights are under threat.

The Poem

The bilingual text reflects the “hyphenated” experience—a constant internal translation of justice, fear, and persistence. Presented as-written, the poem preserves the raw, code-switching register of the original.

. . .

Artist/Performer: Pamela Leung

Filmmaker & Collaborator: Hugo Johannsen

Exhibitions & Awards:

2025

•  Third Place  2nd Hong Kong Human Rights Art Prize

•  2nd Hong Kong Human Rights Art Prize   National 228 Memorial Museum, Taipei, Taiwan

•  MAC yapang Art Prize 2025  Museum of Art & Culture, yapang

2024

•  Hyphenated   Manly Art Gallery and Museum (MAG&M), NSW

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Credits:

ORIGINAL POEM & CONCEPT  •  PAMELA LEUNG

WRITTEN BY  •  PAMELA LEUNG & HUGO JOHANNSEN

DIRECTOR  •  HUGO JOHANNSEN

CINEMATOGRAPHER  •  KYAN PALTOFT

GAFFER  •  GUS DEVYLDER

EDIT, SOUND DESIGN & ANIMATION  •  ZACH VINEY

MUSIC  •  ADRIAN LEUNG

STARRING  •  PAMELA LEUNG

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