Gallery · Hong Kong
Established in 2014 and acting as the experimental, audiovisual division of the international think tank ThinkYoung, THY LAB is a highly radical independent art space and laboratory hidden inside an old tong lau on Yu Chau Street in the working-class district of Sham Shui Po. The space was founded by Alberto Gerosa, an Italian filmmaker, scholar, and professor who has taught theatre anthropology and ethnographic film at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Operating with a distinct mission to treat film and multi-media art as vehicles for rigorous social research, THY LAB serves as a communal threshold where academia, performance studies, and grassroots neighborhood engagement intertwine. In its unique institutional history, the space has carved out a left-field reputation by eschewing commercial gallery tropes, famously transforming its urban surroundings into an open-air art experiment—including a repurposed rooftop outdoor theater and "THY Lane," a neighboring back alley claimed as a 24-hour public museum. Through a decade of experimental programming that includes staging first-ever Hong Kong film retrospectives for legendary international auteurs, leading intensive Super 8 film workshops, and hosting performance installations, THY LAB bridges avant-garde global ethnography directly with local subcultures.