Scotty So is a Melbourne/Narrm-based artist who works across media, including ceramic, painting, photography, sculptures, site-responsive installation, videos, and performance. Driven by the thrill of camp, he explores the often-contradictory relationship between humour and sincerity, creating a scene of para-fiction through the manipulation of found objects and existing imageries in the living experience. Born and raised in Hong Kong, So’s work has been shown in Australia, China, Hong Kong, and Europe, including the National Gallery of Victoria.
Queen of the Begonias is a short film and photography project that pay tribute to the Begonia Queens who were a feature of Ballarat’s Begonia Festival from 1953 to 1993. This project was commissioned by the Art Gallery of Ballarat for PHOTO 2024 program with the research focus on the history of the town’s Begonia Festival and as a metaphor for belonging and becoming through the artist's reimagination becoming the ghost a contestant with Chinese heritage in the pageant in the Gold Rush town haunting the past and present time of Ballarat.
