Two distinct flavours, one shared obsession: LOUSY and David Leung collide in a chaotic love letter to Hong Kong, distilling the steam, noise, and living soul of the Yum Cha ritual.

Get your chopsticks ready. On January 29, 2026, JPS Gallery Hong Kong transforms into a surreal teahouse, serving up “Double Umami”—a dynamic duo exhibition by Hong Kong artists David Leung (also known as Davidgoodtime) and LOUSY. Reimagining the daily ritual of Yum Cha through two distinct yet perfectly complementary artistic frequencies, the exhibition is a high-energy dive into the city’s vibrant collective memory.

Lab Sessions & “Social & Chill”: The Art of the Hangout

This show was not born in a studio, but over endless baskets of har gow. “Double Umami” is the culmination of a two-year creative dialogue between photographer David and street artist LOUSY—a conversation chewed over countless morning teas.

What began as casual gatherings quickly evolved into experimental “lab sessions.” For this duo, the Yum Cha table serves as a site of play, observation, and invention. It is the ultimate “Social & Chill” ritual—chaotic, noisy, intimate, and deeply woven into Hong Kong’s DNA. Their collaboration translates this energy into visual form, capturing the essence of communal dining as both social theatre and cultural backbone.

The Tabletop Academy: A Syllabus Written in Tea Stains

The title “Double Umami” riffs on the Cantonese phrase “Mei Dim Seung Fai” (美點雙輝)—usually describing a delightful duo of pastries—here representing the collision of two creative forces. As their sessions deepened, the artists realised their regular table had quietly become an informal institute: a tabletop “academy” where tea stains become mountains, and the wrinkles of a siu mai offer a study in texture.

“Every time we went for tea, the table became our ‘laboratory,’” explains David. “We didn’t just eat; we watched, played, and conversed with our surroundings.”

Dining with Legacy: The “Bao Bin” Connection

JPS Gallery’s historic location provides a serendipitous stage for the show. The building’s façade still carries the original, faded signage of the former “Bao Bin Tea Room” (寶賓茶室) from the 1970s, adding a layer of historical resonance. Visitors will first walk through these architectural memories of Hong Kong’s culinary past before stepping into the reimagined teahouse of the present. 

Inside, the gallery comes alive with a customised dim sum cart installation, collaboratively painted on by the artists, blurring the line between art space and bustling restaurant.

David Leung: Subconscious Served Hot

David sees faces where others simply see lunch. Pushing the boundaries of his innovative pareidolia photography, he turns his lens toward the “overlooked souls” tucked into the folds of dumplings and the subtle cracks of egg tarts.

In a collaboration that bridges generations, David mounts these works inside authentic bamboo steamers handcrafted by the legendary bamboo master Lui Ming (呂明). Operating simultaneously as frames and symbols, these tactile, three-dimensional sculptures transport viewers straight into the sensory world of the table, grounding contemporary photography in traditional craftsmanship.

Completing the menu is his “Sauce” series, a vivid pivot from extraction to pure alchemy. Here, David communes with the Fu Lu Shou (The Fortune Buddies). These celestial guardians have watched over our meals and celebrations for centuries, yet David seeks to meet them not through iconic representation but through the very substances of the communal table. 

Wielding a custom tool he calls “SYMMETRICA”—hinged boards that mimic the folding motion of a Hong Kong egg waffle maker—he turns the canvas into a Rorschach portal. Instead of capturing a moment, he “collaborates” with the medium, folding and unfolding the pigment to find faces in the abstract. Fortune (Fu) is summoned through the fiery red of chilli sauce, embodying the unpredictable heat of luck that is all-consuming; Prosperity (Lu) channels the piercing yellow of Chinese mustard to reflect the sharp, ambitious energy of wealth and status; and Longevity (Shou) is rendered in the soft pink of the longevity peach, which evokes serenity, continuity and the slow, sweet passage of time. In this shift from lens to alchemy, David presents a hidden face with a blessing waiting to be seen—an offering at the intersection of ritual and revelation.

LOUSY: The Order of Chaos

Street artist LOUSY brings his distinctive glyphic aesthetic to an unexpected surface: dim sum order sheets. Known for his primitive, fluorescent, and unapologetically raw style, he has long been drawn to unconventional materials—from maps to banknotes. In “Double Umami,” the humble order slip becomes a stage for capturing not the look of the food, but the pulse, chaos, and warmth of communal gathering.

By choosing to work on order sheets, LOUSY highlights the overlooked paperwork that quietly structures the yum cha experience. His fluorescent drawings on these grid-lined papers channel the clatter and chatter of traditional teahouses—multiple conversations, rattling crockery, and a kinetic flow of people and plates that feel unmistakably Hong Kong.

“Dim sum is a cultural symbol for Cantonese people,” he notes. “When a cultural symbol is eaten directly into your stomach, it becomes even more powerful. There is nothing that can’t be solved with a cup of tea and a bun.”

Don’t Just Archive It, Eat It

“Double Umami” stands as a vibrant testament to the city’s pulse, refusing to treat heritage as a museum piece. By fusing David’s meditative search for the hidden faces in dim sum with LOUSY’s neon-charged capture of the “clatter and chatter,” this exhibition is a celebration of Hong Kong’s enduring warmth. It proves that the most powerful cultural archives are not the ones we study, but the ones we live, breathe, and digest together.

The Capsule Collaborations: Condiments as Cultural Artifacts

At the heart of Double Umami lies a flavorful dialogue between the artists and two of Hong Kong’s most resonant culinary creators. These limited-edition sauces are more than just condiments—they are bottled philosophies, extending the exhibition’s exploration of identity, memory, and taste into a form you can hold, use, and savor.

LOUSY x Wendy’s Wok World: "Special Collab Soy Sauce"

In a bold pairing of street energy and traditional craft, LOUSY’s raw, rhythmic graffiti meets Wendy’s Wok World’s deeply fermented, small-batch soy sauce. The result—"Special Collab Soy Sauce"—is a blend where heritage meets rebellion. Each of the 22 bottles is wrapped in LOUSY’s signature and frenetic mark-making, turning the timeless amber liquid into a vessel of contemporary dissent.

DavidGoodtime x May Chow: "Fook Jiang (福醬)"

David Goodtime’s fascination with pareidolia—seeing meaning in abstraction—finds its perfect culinary partner in chef May Chow’s inventive, boundary-pushing chilli sauce. Their collaboration, "Fook Jiang (福醬)," is a sensory riddle. The sauce itself, crafted by May Chow, balances bright red heat with umami richness, while its label features a section of Goodtime’s original chilli-sauce Rorschach art. Each of the 50 bottles inviting the user to find faces, forms, and stories in both the art on the bottle and the fire on the palate.

Together, these 72 bottles form a curated pantry of contemporary Hong Kong. They translate the exhibition’s themes of duality, perception, and cultural reclamation into intimate, collectible objects. To own one is to possess not just a condiment, but a capsule of the show’s spirit—a taste of the collision where art, memory, and flavor permanently intertwine.