Rundown:
15:45 Gather at CHAT and Registration
16:00 Start of the guided tour
17:00 End of the guided tour

Yee I-Lann: Until We Hug Again is the first solo exhibition in Hong Kong by Yee I-Lann, an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist from Kota Kinabalu, the State of Sabah, Malaysia.

Yee established her artistic career through digitally manipulating images from found photographs and historical archives. Her works respond to the modern history of the Southeast Asia Archipelago and its colonial past and postcolonial present. Interrogating the nature of photographic imagery, which often subconsciously capture power structures such as hegemony, hierarchy and gender inequality embedded in societies while preserving them as memory or documentation, Yee has been disentangling historical narratives from a single perspective, presenting complex cultural identities formed by multiple ethnicities throughout the geopolitical history of Southeast Asia.

A critical examiner of image production and material nature, Yee carefully chooses materials and techniques for her works. In the exhibition at CHAT, her past and recent works are showcased, emphasising the significance of textiles in Yee’s works not only as an active agent to shed light on the absence of female actors in the colonial history of the Southeast Asia Archipelago, but also as a methodology to collectively represent the intricacy of the region’s multi-ethnic cultural identity and heritage.

Throughout the exhibition, Yee’s works present her personal journey to reconnect with the communities in Sabah as well as the various forms of resilience of her collaborators, who have overcome many difficult challenges as a result of modernisation and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond introducing a postcolonial representation of Sabah, her works in the exhibition will also speak about solidarity, compassion and humour, which are persistent themes in her artistic practice.

Mr. Bruce Li, CHAT’s Assistant Curator, will lead our members in this guided tour.

Read more about the exhibition here.

Born and currently lives and works in Kota Kinabalu in the Malaysian Borneo state of Sabah, Yee I-Lann has been involved in various cultural sectors including film industries, the art academy and the music scene in Kuala Lumpur after completing her studies of visual art in Adelaide, Australia. Since 2017, Yee has lived and worked in her homeland of Kota Kinabalu and started working in collaboration with sea-based and mountain-based communities to create art pieces with indigenous materials and techniques. At the same time, she serves as a board member for Forever Sabah and Tamparuli Living Arts Center (TaLAC), nonprofit organisations established for Sabah’s nature conservation and sustainability efforts as well as the preservation and promotion of cultural activities.
Her works are included in the collections of prominent international art institutions including Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, USA; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan; National Art Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; National Art Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; UBS Art Collection, London, UK and the Kadist Foundation, Paris, France. 

For enquiries, please call 2103 9503