To create this work, Sia used her iPhone to record frontline scenes from the 2019 Hong Kong protests, in which she participated as an activist. The handheld video takes up the language of social media and citizen journalism but rejects the sensationalizing tactics of mass media. Instead, the artist highlights seemingly insignificant moments, periods of waiting, and mundane details, working “against the spectacle of unrest.” “In Never Rest/Unrest, I was trying to avoid adjudicating my position or attempting to persuade the viewer,” Sia explained. “The film is not about proof. It’s not about evidence. It’s not a plea. It’s about life and endurance and the everyday.”

Gallery label from

Signals: How Video Transformed the World, March 5–July 8, 2023

Credit Fund for the Twenty-First Century
Object number W26335
Department Film - Work/Variant

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