Visual Arts

We are pleased to welcome Yogesh Barve for a two-part residency, with the first part from 16 to 30 June 2016, and second part from 20 September to 3 October 2016, followed by an exhibition as a response to the residency, in collaboration with Clark House Initiative artists.
From his first experience of Hong Kong which includes deportation, the vibrant electronic market and night markets of the underprivileged and multicultural Sham Shui Po, artspaces amidst old buildings from the colonial period, funeral homes and mega shopping malls all next to each other, Yogesh Barve attempts to disentangle and decipher systems and histories of a former British colonial city very close to Bombay where he comes from.
‘Yogesh Barve uses deduction to conceptualize an array of objects that narrate and refuse to shed layer. By deducting the layers of utility and turning an object redundant into abstraction he is able to decipher like an archaeologist layers behind the production, history and finally accessibility to the consumption of its utility. Here is where in/equality appears in a measure that is visual and undecipherable at the first glance. Hong Kong is a port, one which promises an avenue into China but also to other nations, it is an entrepot of information, foreign reporters writing on the region are stationed there. Its architecture is utilitarian rather than derived much from an aesthetic of a movement or style, but beneath the walls lie lives of many — immigration from mainland China, colonization and the crown colonies such as Barve’s native India. When one encounters the electronics market, one also deciphers the complex links of trade between Hong Kong and the rest of the world, one that brings in goods from China sending them across to nations who desperately need goods that are made cheaply defying the costs of copyright. Yogesh Barve has always used the architecture of the Indian constitution to critique the inequalities of Indian society, here he looks at the laws of immigration, asylum and deportation from a personal perspective on how visa regimes work, whom do they allow? How do they let in and who lives on as a refugee? Do British era colonial laws allow an island state to work with another system? Demolishing the alphabets of the word “System”, Barve begins an extensive dismantling of the layers that define visual Hong Kong.’ —- Sumesh Sharma
Yogesh Barve is an artist based in Mumbai, India. Using a range of materials, including found objects, digital technologies, such as his mobile phone camera, and search and game engines, his work examines social and cultural experiences of in/equality, ir/rationality, the un/invited, and the in/outsider. He is a member of Clark House Initiative, a curatorial collaborative and a union of artists based in Bombay.
​We sincerely thank Anjali and Gaurav Grover for generously supporting this residency at Things that can happen.
‘Things that can happen’ is a non-profit art space located in the historic district of Sham Shui Po, in Kowloon, at the heart of Hong Kong. ‘Things’ aims to provide a platform for open experimentation and dialogue in response to the rapidly changing social, political and cultural context of our city.