Two Hong Kong-born artists are asking visitors in Venice to slow down and pay attention to the small, overlooked details that connect their city with the floating one. Fermata: Hong Kong in Venice, curated by the Hong Kong Museum of Art and on view at Campo della Tana until November 22, marks the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's first participation in the Venice Biennale.

Kingsley Ng's installation Laundry Nocturne, made in 2026, combines projection and sound to evoke the play of light across laundry strung between buildings, a sight he encountered in Venice that also stirred memories of home. The work opens into a wider soundscape of night labour, with recordings from a wastewater treatment plant, a newspaper-printing facility and a postal sorting centre, evoking the modest processes that keep a city running while most of its people sleep. Ng describes these as a low hum present in almost every city, audible only to an ear that does not listen solely for grandeur.

Angel Hui turns her attention to humble features of Hong Kong daily life, including goldfish carried home in plastic bags and a neighbour's ornate but faded window frame. Glowing plastic bags embroidered with goldfish motifs hang suspended above visitors, while a handwrought iron window made by Hui with traditional metalsmiths turns slowly in the gallery. In Hong Kong, she says, a goldfish bag is an everyday object; in Venice it seemed almost precious, delicate and exposed, a reminder that a work need not be grand to hold meaning.

The title Fermata carries two meanings: a musical instruction to hold a note for an extra moment, and the name for the places where Venetian water buses stop to let passengers on and off. The show also speaks to this year's Biennale theme, In Minor Keys, set by the late curator Koyo Kouoh. Hong Kong Museum of Art director Maria Mok said the works blur the boundary between the exhibition and its surroundings, showing how small moments of daily life can quietly synchronise across different cities.