Packy Lai: OMG — Packy Lai

Drawing on the Taoist ritual of “deconsecration”, OMG, titled 《退神殿》 in Chinese, uses dark humour to draw back the curtain on the lives we have been taught to perform — releasing us from inherited expectations of “who we are supposed to become” and opening a space for the self to be seen, questioned and redefined.

At a certain point in life, we begin to realise that many of our so-called “choices” may have been written for us long before we ever made them: what we should study, what work we should pursue, when we should marry, what counts as success, and what kind of person we are expected to become. Along the way, we try so hard to live well, to do things properly, to become the person we were told we should be. Yet we may never have had the time, or the courage, to ask ourselves: Is this truly the life I want?

Packy Lai’s new solo exhibition, OMG, begins with that question — one that often arises as we approach middle age. Borrowing from the Taoist ritual of “deconsecration”, the ceremonial withdrawal of a deity’s spirit from an object of worship, the exhibition uses dark humour to confront the “gods” we have unknowingly enshrined in our own lives: the rules, expectations and inherited beliefs that once decided the course of our lives for us.

These seemingly weighty questions appear in OMG through forms that are absurd, humorous, and almost painfully true: a gilded salted fish valued at HK$1 million; the chaos of modern romance rewritten in the form of a solemn “Great Compassion Mantra”; an AI chanting machine offering spiritual deliverance; and “Deconsecration Divination Sticks” that bless the drawer with the courage to release their attachments.

By recomposing familiar religious symbols, secular desires, and the rituals of daily life, Packy Lai brings these “gods” out of the shrine and into the everyday. They are no longer distant presences enthroned above us, but forces we encounter every day.

“Deconsecration”, then, is not about tearing everything down. It is an act of seeing again.

OMG does not offer a standard answer to middle age, nor does it encourage us to demolish everything and begin again. Instead, it becomes a moment of self-reflection at life’s intermission: once we finally see the script we have been following, can we still choose the next scene for ourselves?

Through these darkly comedic works, Packy Lai invites audiences to look closely at the “gods” we once made with our own hands. Perhaps a true midlife awakening is not the sudden discovery of who we are meant to become, but the courage to admit: I do not have to become the person anyone expected me to be.

“The gods our generation worships may no longer reside in religion. They are the gods society has installed within us.”

Taking the “temple” as its spatial metaphor, OMG presents six installations that appropriate religious forms — from Buddhist sutras and the Bible to crucifixes, sacrificial rites, and divination sticks — to house modern desires for romance, success, wealth, and self-actualisation. Moving beyond Packy Lai’s previous calligraphic works on paper, the exhibition also incorporates interactive elements, including an AI chanting machine and the experience of drawing “Deconsecration Divination Sticks”. Together, these works dismantle the values we have grown accustomed to accepting and may never have thought to question.