EXHIBITION
The Piles We Carry

Opening: 9 May, 7 – 10pm
Exhibition period: 10 May – 29 June

UKS is pleased to announce the first large-scale institutional solo exhibition by Yu Shuk Pui Bobby. The Piles We Carry is an exploration of the body’s hidden narratives and inherited discomforts, and the ways we process personal and collective pain through humour, storytelling and shared experience.

At the heart of the exhibition is a situational comedy documentary that reenacts the Yu family’s collective experience with haemorrhoids and their journey towards healing. Filmed in Hong Kong using a playback theatre approach, the film reconstructs family conversations and medical encounters through improvisation, humour and dramatised retellings. It offers an intimate yet absurd reflection on how health conditions shape family dynamics and how bodily experiences are inherited not just genetically, but also culturally and emotionally.

The Piles We Carry transforms personal medical history into a communal act of reimagining and retelling. It is an exhibition about the things we inherit: the stories we tell, the bodies we live in, and the quiet whispers inside us that shape how we navigate pain, identity and healing.

 

About

Yu Shuk Pui Bobby is a visual artist and filmmaker based in Hong Kong and Oslo. Using video, text, installation, sculpture and performance she explores bodily autonomy, generational trauma and identity. In recent years, she has worked with different communities in video-making to explore identity construction within various cultural contexts – always with an element of humour and surrealism. By intertwining semi-fictional narratives, her work investigates how memory and lived experiences shape both personal and collective histories, often including perceptions of care, stories of migration and inherited legacies in and of the body.

Yu holds a BA from Hong Kong Baptist University and an MFA from Oslo National Academy of Fine Art. Her work has been shown at The Shophouse (2024), Hong Kong Museum of Medical Sciences (2022), Parasite (2017), Tomorrow Maybe Gallery (2017), all in Hong Kong; VI VII (2024), Podium (2022), Galleri BOA (2021), K4 Gallery (2021), Kunstnernes Hus (2021), all in Oslo; Swatch Art Peach Hotel, Shanghai (2017); A Place Gallery & Studios, Orlando (2016); Youkobo Art Space Gallery, Tokyo (2016); Listhus Gallery, Ólafsfjörður (2016). In 2023, she was awarded the Best Director at 17th Freshwave Film Festival in Hong Kong.

Credits

Support team
Researcher: Yi-Hong Wang
Consultant: Sean Wong
Stuffed Animals Technician: Piotrek Chrzanowski
Art Therapist: Haylie Chang
Family Therapist: Carney, Yip Man Wai

Whispers in the Belly Film Unit
Cast: Artist and her family
Boyfriend: Nikolaj Legner Cucilovic
Writer & Director: Yu Shuk Pui Bobby
Producer: Christine Wong
Assistant Director: Ya Leung
Script Supervisor: Rain Chan
Editor & Colourist: Kinglun Leung
Composer: Kung Chi Yip
Sound Design & Mixing: Amy Chan Tsz Kwan
Make-up: Kinki Liu
Still Photographers: Chau Gung, Karen Luk
Making-of: Isaac Chan
Art & Costume Director: Umi Ngai
Assistant Art Director: Prince
Director of Photography (DP): Leung Ming Kai
Assistant Camera: Mr Sing
Camera & Lighting Crew: Kenneth Siu, Yin, KKYH_186
Production Assistants: Jana Pang, Benson Ng, Hiram Tsang and Gavin Lee (Assistant Production Manager)
Sound Recordist: Saturday Chu

He’s Just a Kid Animation
3D Animator: Wei Hsiang Zeng

Support & Acknowledgements
This exhibition is generously supported by Fond for Lyd og Bilde, Forbundet Frie Fotografer, Arts Council Norway and Norske Billedkunstnere.

The artist sincerely thanks her family, her supportive crew, the UKS team, and everyone who has provided intellectual, emotional and spiritual support over the last three years.

 

 

Image above: Chau Gung