Fountain of life
Trevor Yeung celebrates elements of Hong Kong's popular culture in his Venice Biennale of Art 2024 showcase, inviting audiences to see the world from the point of view of aquarium fish. Chitralekha Basu reports.
Through the lens of nature
"Yeung's conceptual art practice is unique in that he creates installations and mixed-media works using horticulture, aquariums and found objects to draw comparisons between a domesticated natural world and the society we reside in," says Mimi Chun, founder and director of Hong Kong's Blindspot Gallery, which represents the artist.
She is referring to the way Yeung often places a slice of nature inside a domestic set-up, using nature as a lens to explore the human condition. For instance, the centerpiece of Mr Cuddles in a Hotel Room, one of the installations in Yeung's Sigg Prize 2023 entry and on display at M+ until recently, features a money tree in harness and hung diagonally from the ceiling. The plant's tightly braided exposed roots and the precarious nature of its suspended state is meant to chime with the uncertainty and angst suffered by Hong Kong returnees who were forced into a long quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similarly, Courtyard invites the audience to tap into their negative capabilities - imagine "being a fish inside a fish tank and seeing the world from the perspective of a fish". Yeung says that "the idea is to have the audience see themselves as part of the work". The abundance of water and mirrored surfaces that reflect, and also refract, images of the visitors to the exhibition is meant to aid this process. From Pond of Never Enough - a fountain made out of stacked aquariums placed in the courtyard at the entrance to the exhibition - to the recycled buckets fitted with solar panels and containing miniature self-sustaining lotus "gardens" scattered all around it, throughout the exhibition there is no dearth of reflectors where visitors can catch a glimpse of themselves as well as, as Yeung points out, "of others watching their reflections".
The presence of the lotus gardens, which are easy to miss at this time, as the leaves will appear in summer and the flowers will bloom only in autumn, is a quiet nod to the artist's perennial concern for protecting the environment. Buckets used to collect industrial or construction waste, which, more often than not, is nonbiodegradable, have been recycled as planters to grow the lotus plants - symbolizing a beautiful journey toward embracing sustainable lifestyle practices.
