Observations Under the Flyover
Solo exhibition
The Back Room KL, Malaysia
18 April - 11 May 2025
Observations Under the Flyover is a year-long site-specific project investigating the intersection of infrastructure and class isolation in contemporary Kuala Lumpur. Developed within a studio located in Pandan Jaya—a working-class enclave bordering the city centre where local low-income residents, migrants, and refugees live and work—the project critiques how modern urban planning actively segregates vulnerable populations.
The core of the project relies on the dual meaning of the "flyover." Visually, the neighbourhood is dominated by monumental concrete overpasses that facilitate rapid automobile transit for outsiders while severing local pedestrian connectivity. Conceptually, it mirrors the American idiom of "flyover country"—signifying non-destination zones that exist solely to be passed through.
To archive this landscape of neglect and endurance, Yeo produced over forty paintings capturing the unvarnished vernacular of Pandan Jaya's streets: ramshackle snack stalls, abandoned cars with wheels missing and smashed windows, strangers sitting by a highway bathed in the neon glow of a street performance nearby.
Rather than displaying the paintings in a standard linear sequence, the eventual gallery configuration installs the entire body of work on the ceiling. This massing of artworks functions as an architectural intervention, creating a low-hanging canopy that mimics the physical presence of a highway overpass, transferring the claustrophobic reality of the urban poor directly into the gallery space.
Credits
Texts by Ong Kar Jin
Exhibition identity by Ejin Sha
With thanks to FOST Gallery
