In Virtual Return You (can't) Dehaunt   2020

Yarli Allsion is an artist who traverses across virtual modelling, sculpture, installation, moving-image, poetry, and performance, Yarli graduated with an MFA (first-class honours) in sculpture from The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, UK in 2017. She was granted the year’s entry award Yitzhak Danziger scholarship. Her works are shown internationally including in Gardiner Museum, Toronto (2015), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (2016), TAF_The Art Foundation, Athens (2018), Videotage Gallery, Hong Kong (2020), ICA Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2021), and international film festivals from 2018-2020. Her recent grants include Hong Kong Art Council Project Grant, Canada Council for the Arts Artist Aboard Grant, and Zabludowicz collection London Masterclass. She was a guest speaker of Academic of Visual Arts, HKBU and The Arts Show, BBC Radio Ulster (2018). She is a member of Asia-Art-Activism, London.

Presented at Videotage from 27 October to 5 November 2020, Yarli Allison's 2020 multi-channel moving image work “In Virtual Return You (can't) Dehaunt” traces the real-life stories of four queer Hong Kong (trans)migrants by reconstructing their nostalgic homes in virtual reality (VR). Through the process of metaphorical ‘return’, constructed with VR modelling, soliloquies and symbolic movements, diasporic narratives and the construction of identity were explored and questioned.