>> On April 25th, the Barceló Foundation will host the PhotoTalk: Conversation with Yu Depeng event at 6:00 PM as part of Mallorca PhotoFest. Following this, at 7:00 PM, the official opening of the exhibition “Diary of a Hermit” will take place; the exhibition will be open to the public until May 9th.
>> Fine Arts students will also present works of a reinterpretation inspired by the visual universe of this international artist who has exhibited at the Prado Museum.
The international Chinese artist Yu Depeng is the star of Mallorca PhotoFest, a proposal by the ADEMA-Fine Arts University School that will transform the exhibition into an experience of creation and contemporary thought with an exhibition project that goes beyond the traditional format to become an active space for dialogue between contemporary creation, artistic training and visual thinking.
The initiative will present the exhibition “Diary of a Hermit” by the Chinese artist Yu Depeng, along with a parallel proposal developed by the students of the degree where they will reinterpret the visual world of this international artist.
The exhibition will open on April 25 and will run until May. Prior to the official opening, scheduled for 7:00 p.m., the Mallorca PhotoFest program will include PhotoTalk: Conversation with Yu Depeng at 6:00 p.m., a meeting with the artist that will allow the public to learn about his career and the conceptual foundations of his work. Both events, part of the festival’s official program, will take place at the Barceló Foundation.
As explained by Amparo Sard, Head of Studies for the Fine Arts Degree at ADEMA, “ADEMA’s presence at this event is not merely an exhibition, but rather an expanded conception of the artistic project as a pedagogical tool. The proposal places students in a real-world context of production and exhibition, creating a space where practice, critical reflection, and direct experience are inextricably linked. Our students have an exceptional opportunity to meet an international artist of Yu Depeng’s stature, who has exhibited at the Prado Museum, and to research and reinterpret his work.”
Within this framework, the work of Yu Depeng becomes the central focus of the project. Born in China and based in Madrid, the artist has built an international career at the intersection of experimental film, photography, moving image, and installation. His work is characterized by a poetic, non-narrative approach, in which references to Chinese cultural tradition converge with strategies of contemporary audiovisual language.
Over the past decade, her work has been exhibited at institutions such as Ars Santa Mónica, Matadero Madrid, and the National Museum of Anthropology, establishing a significant presence in the European art scene. Her practice explores the boundaries of audiovisual grammar and addresses issues such as identity and memory, among others.
Works at the Barceló Foundation
The exhibition “Diary of a Hermit” brings together his most recent video installations, including “Round Sky and Square Earth,” “Misty,” and the piece that gives the project its title. The exhibition is designed as an immersive experience in which the exhibition space is transformed into a moving painting. The images unfold in a fragmented manner, generating an open narrative in which the viewer plays an active role. In the artist’s own words, “I don’t like to direct the viewer’s gaze; I prefer that each person interpret it according to their own feelings,” thus underscoring the open nature of his work.
Although the works originate from landscapes in northern Madrid, they transcend their geographical dimension to become symbolic territories imbued with memory and intercultural experience. In his practice, the landscape functions as a place of transit where memories of his native China engage in dialogue with the Spanish environment, generating an expanded interpretation of the territory. Yu Depeng himself acknowledges this convergence of influences, noting that “there are many connotations of Chinese landscape painting, but also connections with the European tradition.”
This approach is articulated from an introspective perspective. The artist avoids a literal or documentary interpretation of migration, preferring a more universal perspective. “I’m not so interested in making a social documentary about migration; rather, I prefer to work on the universal feeling of being displaced or out of place,” he explains, framing uprooting as a shared emotional condition rather than a strictly social issue.
The exhibition has been curated by Susana Sanz Giménez, a specialist in moving images with a career spanning Europe and China. Her work provides a critical framework that connects Yu Depeng’s work with contemporary debates on image, interculturality, and new audiovisual languages.
One of the central aspects of the project is the participation of students from ADEMA Fine Arts. On the lower floor of the Barceló Foundation, the students present an exhibition proposal that is not conceived as a complement, but rather as an extension of the artistic discourse. Based on the conceptual axes of Yu Depeng’s work, they develop pieces that address the relationship between landscape, memory, and identity from a contemporary perspective.
This intervention introduces a pedagogical dimension that allows us to observe how an artistic language is activated and transformed within the academic sphere. The works demonstrate the capacity of Yu Depeng’s work to generate new interpretations and open up processes of research and creation in dialogue with the real-world context.
The conversation with the artist, in this sense, takes on a fundamental role within the project. As part of the exhibition, Yu Depeng will present his career as a photographer, addressing the conceptual and formal elements that permeate his practice. The discussion will offer a journey through some of his main photographic series, such as Nostalgia, Niebla (Fog), and Bajar de la montaña (Descending from the Mountain), developed between 2019 and 2024, in which landscape, memory, and identity are articulated from a perspective that oscillates between the documentary and the poetic.
Through these series, the artist explores the relationship between humankind and its environment, constructing images that function as spaces for contemplation and reflection. During the talk, he will delve into the creative processes behind his photographs, as well as the ongoing dialogue between his cultural roots and the territories he inhabits. His work, developed between China and Spain, reveals an intercultural sensibility that connects diverse visual traditions.
Regarding his language, Yu Depeng emphasizes that “cinematic expression is more direct and stark than painting in recording the changes in the world,” an idea that allows us to understand the central role of the moving image in his practice and its ability to articulate contemporary discourses from a visual perspective.
This presentation will allow us to contextualize his photographic work within the whole of his work, offering a broader understanding of his artistic universe and the connections between his photographs and his video installations.
With this initiative, ADEMA reinforces its commitment to an educational model linked to real-world practice and the contemporary artistic context. Its participation in Mallorca PhotoFest consolidates a way of understanding teaching in which exhibition, research, and learning are all part of the same process.
The Barceló Foundation thus becomes a space where work, thought and training coexist, and where the exhibition experience opens up to new forms of relationship between artist, student and public.