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Ben Yau (1992) is an investigative artist whose practice addresses gaps and suppressed narratives within Western historiography. He is particularly concerned with the ways in which histories are constructed, distorted and deliberately erased, especially in colonial contexts. Yau was born in Hong Kong and grew up in the United Kingdom: ‘My family history is inseparable from the British colonial system that enabled migration. It is something that I will always carry with me.’ This personal background strongly informs his work.
Through artistic interventions in institutional archives, Yau questions their apparent authority. He highlights how such archives never offer a complete account, but instead consist of fragments, residues and the ghosts of what has been lost. The work at Prospects, In the Shadow of Ashes (2023), constitutes the second chapter of a long-term project and builds on earlier themes using new narratives, including an in-depth conversation with Lim Kok, the son of a victim of the Batang Kali massacre of 1948 in present-day Malaysia.
In the multimedia installation, Yau brings together declassified documents from The National Archives in London, newspaper clippings and rare archival material with voice, light and projection. Central to the work is Operation Legacy: the systematic destruction of colonial archives by the British government. Projectors – once instruments of colonial propaganda – are repurposed to render these concealed histories visible. By situating the work within a space that viewers are free to explore, Yau transforms the archive into a site of confrontation, remembrance and critical counter-narrative.
Written by Kelly-ann van Steveninck