PUBLISHED December 18th, 2025 09:14 pm
In the art world’s fast turn toward market logic where art fairs, auctions, and private collectors often dictate visibility, Para Site in Hong Kong stands as a deliberate countercurrent. The independent art space, founded in 1996 by a group of young Hong Kong artists, has never charged for admission. Instead, it sustains itself through an evolving community of artists, curators, and cultural workers who see it as more than a venue, they see it as home.
Para Site’s 2025 Benefit Auction, which recently concluded in Hong Kong, exemplifies this ethos. While on the surface it appears like any other art auction, it is in fact a quiet manifesto: one that asserts that sustainability in the arts can emerge from care, not just capital. The works sold weren’t just donated; they were offered in solidarity as gifts from artists whose careers were, at one point, shaped or supported by Para Site’s non-commercial, artist-centred programming.
Junni Chen, Interim Director of Para Site, describes the auction as an extension of the organisation’s curatorial mission. “Many of the artists who donate works see it as a way of paying it forward,” she says. “Because of our ethos of nurturing younger artists and pursuing new ideas or practices, many who showed at Para Site early in their careers such as Ming Wong or Citra Sasmita, have since become prominent names. And they continue to support us, not out of obligation, but out of shared belief.”
This relational model of support defies the transactional nature typically associated with fundraising. In lieu of VIP galas or aggressive donor tiers, the Para Site auction is a meeting point of past and future where artists return not only to give, but to reconnect, re-energise, and remind each other why spaces like this still matter.
This continuity is foundational to Para Site’s ethos. As Junni Chen shares, the auction reflects the strength of relationships nurtured over decades between artists and institution, between peers and practices. “It shows that we are willing to take risks,” she says, “and encourage artists to do something that hasn’t been done before.” At a time when cultural institutions can lean toward polished, market-ready narratives, Para Site’s openness to experimentation and critical thought remains a rare constant.
This sentiment is echoed by others across the alumni spectrum. The 2025 Benefit Auction included works by both new-generation artists such as Rong Bao and Chen Ruofan, as well as long-time collaborators like Heman Chong and Maria Taniguchi. The range signals a curatorial vision not constrained by trend cycles, but shaped by long-term investment in practices that might otherwise fall outside of institutional or market interest.
Indeed, the works chosen for the auction, as Chen notes, reflect “the relationships we’ve nurtured with artists abroad and locally,” and they span a broad geography and medium. But more than anything, they reflect trust. “It shows that we’re willing to take risks,” she says, “and encourage artists to do something that hasn’t been done before.”
That willingness is more than aesthetic, it’s intentional. At a time when contemporary art institutions globally are navigating questions of decolonisation, inclusion, and autonomy, Para Site’s model offers an alternate blueprint. Its support structures extend beyond the exhibition calendar, encompassing public programmes, critical writing, residencies, and mentorship. It’s less a pipeline and more a web: messy, layered, and alive.
Para Site’s continued relevance globally stems not just from its longevity, but from its refusal to conform. Its fundraising model, paradoxically, is successful precisely because it doesn’t feel like fundraising. It feels like family. As one supporter put it during the auction preview, “You don’t donate to Para Site to be seen. You donate because, once, they saw you.”
And perhaps this is the deeper legacy of the Benefit Auction, not as a revenue generator, but as an ecosystem check-in. A moment for the global art world to be reminded that amidst all the commercial noise, there are still places where ideas are the currency and relationships are the architecture.
For more information on Para Site, visit para-site.art.