Lucas Chih-Peng Kao is an award-winning filmmaker, photographer and collaborative artist, born in Taiwan and settled in Edinburgh. He loves telling stories in all forms using enchanting visuals and sound design. His work has spanned poetry, dance, 360 video, and hybrid theatre, both as lead artist and in collaboration with choreographers and directors.
His recent work includes “Portal”, an immersive website and 360 films based on stories of Tramway in Glasgow, and “Beyond the Line” with Scottish Refugee Council. His latest work, an ambitious sci-fi film titled The Air We Breathe, will be competing in the 2025 Glasgow Short Film Festival.
He has become a regular face at Hidden Door Festival, volunteering with Lorna Simpson in our early days. He’s since gone on to perform a project about his identity, Catching up with Oneself, in 2018, and exhibited “Let’s Go To Granton” and “Foul Fish” by Bridie Gane in 2021.
For Hidden Door’s 2025 Festival Lucas Chih-Peng Kao and Katanari present Creaturim: The Lost Ones
“Remember the first time you saw a new animal species you have never seen before?”
Drawing inspiration from extinct species, Lucas Chih-Peng Kao presents creatures lost to evolutionary history, climate change or human interference, as well as his new creations that mix evolutionary branches from past, present and future.
Creaturium is an immersive multidisciplinary collaboration between Edinburgh-based Taiwanese Filmmaker/Artist Lucas Chih-Peng Kao and Slovakia-based puppeteer/theatre-maker Katanari. Conjuring the spirit of a victorian curio exhibition and Joseph Cornell, the artwork contains a sculpture, video, soundscape, drawing and various objects housed in a handmade cabinet by Edinburgh based maker Emily Martineli.
The sculptures were assembled by Katanari in Slovakia from objects reclaimed by nature, including animal bones, shells, seaweed, branches, and stone. The immersive video and soundscape made by Lucas explores the origin stories of each object and how they might behave.
Lucas and Katanari encourage attendees of all ages to engage and come up with their own stories of how these creatures were formed and where they came from.
Find out more about Lucas at cplkao.myportfolio.com
and about Katanari at katanariart.com