Book Talk: Ecologies of Artistic Practice by Ashley Lee Wong

Ecologies of Artistic Practice: Rethinking Cultural Economies through Art and Technology (The MIT Press, 2025) 

by Ashley Lee Wong

Ashley Lee Wong Guest Speakers:

Sunny Cheung, Curator, Design and Architecture at M+ 

Rachel Falconer, Head of Digital Arts Computing BSc and a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London

In Ecologies of Artistic Practice, Ashley Lee Wong explores the economic relationships of artists working at the nexus of art and technology as they negotiate a means to make art in a neoliberal creative economy. Wong looks at the diverse ways in which artworks circulate, both online and offline, in galleries, on digital platforms, and on media facades, and investigates some of the mechanisms that enable artists to create works, including selling artworks and NFTs, grants, licensing, commissions, and artist residencies. The book also looks at the ways in which artists collaborate with corporations and develop practices as commercial entities themselves.

The book provides unique insights into the diverse creative and economic processes that shape the meaning and value of artworks. Wong seeks to shift away from notions of individual authorship and finite artworks that can be bought and sold, and instead toward an understanding of artistic practices as collaborative, social, and cultural processes. Rather than critique this economy, Ecologies of Artistic Practice opens space for engaging in hypercommercialized contexts, while considering how money is not an end goal, but a means to initiate or continue an artistic process.

Ashley Lee Wong, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Associate Director of the MA Cultural Management programme. She is Co-Founder and Artistic Director, MetaObjects, a studio that facilitates digital projects with artists and cultural institutions. She initiated the collaborative research project Ecologies of Participation together with Yim Sui Fong (Fine Arts, CUHK) and Melody Hoi-Lam Yiu (Architecture, CUHK) in 2024. She is manager of the Research Network for Philosophy and Technology and Technophany journal. Her research bridges theory and practice to ways of thinking and engaging in contemporary cultural economies for artists and practitioners working at the intersections of art and technology.