Zoe Shum

Digital Direction (MA)

Still from 'STALL', a 360 short film that aims to destigmatise menstruation. In this scene, the inventor of the sanitary belt, Mary Kenner, advises the protagonist, with 2D animation created by Zoe Shum.

Still from 'A Ghost is White: Ah Young and Zoe make a film about White City'. A docu-drama following two students based in White City, London, as they investigate and uncover the area's colonial past. Created by Ah Young Shin and Zoe Shum at the Royal College of Art

Still from 'Some City in a Nightmare', a mixed-media POV film shot inside a handcrafted set model of Soho, London. Created by Ah Young Shin and Zoe Shum at the Royal College of Art

'Proper Broken' is a mixed media installation featuring projection mapping, narrated video and animation. A broken bike is repurposed as a screen to tell the story of how it broke. Created by Zoe Shum for the 2023 Degree Show at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford

About

Zoe (Hiu Suet) Shum is a Hong Kong-born artist and musician who creates narrative multimedia projects ranging from illustration and film to installation and games with focus on digital culture, site-specific stories, positionality and craft.

She read Fine Art (BFA) at the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, and completed an MA in Digital Direction at the Royal College of Art. Her focus on digital narratives began with installation, exemplified by the audiovisual display Proper Broken designed for the 2023 Ruskin Degree Show. The installation featured projection mapping and sound, repurposing a broken children’s motorbike as a screen on which to tell the story of the day it broke when its owner, the narrator, rode it for the first time over 10 years ago.

Bringing a contemporary art perspective to a course with hyper focus on digital technologies, her work at RCA has primarily focused on site-specific narratives and the tension between past and present developments in relation to her as an artist based in the area. The collaborative documentary-drama, A Ghost is White, explores White City’s ambitious development spanning from the 1900s to the modern day. As the film uncovers, the current site of the RCA School of Communication is linked to a series of notable colonial projects including the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908. It was shot using a mix of mini-DV and digital lenses.

Shum also contemplates the importance of preserving traditional making skills in a world where new technologies are constantly emerging. Some City in a Nightmare is a mixed media POV film shot inside a handcrafted miniature model of the Soho and Tottenham Court Road area. Just as Soho dances between its dual cultural and architectural identities, the short film highlights figures and stories past and present, well-known and hidden.

Her interest in using technology to enhance and preserve analogue aesthetics is shown in the 360 film STALL, which combines live action, 3D and 2D animation in effort to destigmatise menstruation for young people through immersive and fun storytelling. This screened as a VR experience at the Ivy Film Festival at Brown University, Rhode Island. During her time at RCA, Shum continued to explore immersive technologies through the Snapchat x AR collaboration, designing an interactive map of haunted London locations in Lens Studio as a prototype for future enjoyable and engaging ways education for adults can be approached.

Instagram: @zoeshumart

Email: zoeshs012@gmail.com

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