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My trip to Hong Kong was planned around Art Basel 2026 (March 25-29), one of the world’s biggest art fairs that reinforces the city’s standing as a global art heavyweight. I arrived curious not only about the art on display but also about the invisible currents— the collectors, the capital, the power plays that have, over time, positioned Hong Kong among the world’s top art markets.
En route from the airport to my hotel Harbour Grand Kowloon, the Hong Kong skyline drew me in before any gallery or art fair could. The International Finance Centre (IFC)—the city’s second tallest building—designed by César Pelli, known for building some of the tallest buildings in the world, rose in a commanding sweep of steel and glass. The cityscape is shaped by some of the world’s most influential names—Bank of China Tower by I.M. Pei, HSBC Building by Norman Foster, and the Henderson by Zaha Hadid. Set against Victoria Harbour, these buildings rise in dense clusters yet each remains distinct. Here architecture blurs into art.
I travelled to Hong Kong with Jayesh Sachdev—a Pune-based sculptor and founder of Quirk Box Studio, whose practice spans art, fashion and immersive design; and Siddharth Kerkar, a Goa-based artist, restaurateur and founder of Goa Affordable Art. The idea was to experience the city through them—across conversations, meals, museum corridors and gallery floors.
The first stop was the Hong Kong Palace Museum, located along Victoria Harbour in the West Kowloon Cultural District. Designed by Hong Kong’s famed architect Rocco Yim, the museum reinterprets the architectural language of the Forbidden City through a modern lens. Inside, nine galleries house over 900 artefacts from Beijing’s Palace Museum—ranging from imperial ceramics and paintings to daily objects of courtly life.
One of the most compelling experiences at the museum was the immersive digital exhibition, The Ways in Patterns, that set traditional motifs from textiles, ceramics and architecture into motion. Here, Sachdev conversed with the past, carefully tracing the patterns as they unfurled on the walls, on him and the colours shifted, and shapes expanded and dissolved in a rhythm.
In another wing, Kerkar explored Gallery 2, where the exhibition titled From Dawn to Dusk: Life and Art in the Forbidden City offered a glimpse into a regular day inside the Forbidden City through over 300 objects that once belonged to emperors and their inner circles. Some of the rituals, practices or motifs found in the old temples of the city have their origins here. Hong Kong, after all, lives in a kind of deliberate duality—an old soul wrapped in modern urgency. You see sky scraping buildings standing like sentinels around ancient temples like they were protecting the past, willing to reveal it only to those who look beyond the obvious.
Our next stop was M+ Museum, Asia’s first global museum of contemporary visual culture. Opened in 2021 in the West Kowloon Cultural District, it encompasses over 17,000 square metres of exhibition space across 30-plus galleries. Conceived as a “museum and more,” it was built to rival institutions like MoMA, Tate Modern and Centre Pompidou, positioning Hong Kong as a serious cultural capital.
At M+ Museum, the conversation shifted to what art looks like in the present. As we moved through its galleries, Kerkar observed, “In Hong Kong there’s a lot of industrial materials, the use of 3D printing, new-age technology, digital screens. New media art is quite popular here.”
The next day, we visited Hong Kong Art Central, held at the Central Harbourfront. The fair’s 11th edition brought together over 100 galleries and nearly 500 artists from across Asia and the world.
Sachdev moved through the fair propelled more by instinct than any plan, pausing when something caught his eye. It was this drift that led him to an installation by Hong Wai, a Shanghai-born, Paris-based artist reinterpreting classical Chinese ink traditions through contemporary materials. Her collaborator Sophia the Robot was also present at the stall. Many such interesting artworks commanded attention on sheer merit, and not just on the basis of the artist’s reputation.
The next day, we made our way to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre for the VIP preview of Art Basel Hong Kong 2026. Bringing together 240 leading galleries from 41 countries, the 13th edition felt both expansive and precise—a marketplace, yes, but also a cultural barometer where blue chip names met emerging voices. Sectors like Encounters, dedicated to large installations, and Zero 10 focused on digital art, stretching the definition of contemporary art.
Sachdev gravitated towards Encounters. Curated by Asia-based voices led by Mami Kataoka, the section unfolded through the five elements of nature—earth, water, fire, wind and ether— guiding movement through the space. He lingered around Suki Seokyeong Kang’s suspended textile installation that seemed to breathe, and at Parag Tandel’s yarn-based work, its fibres tracing an almost ancestral pull to the sea. “It’s both educational and enriching to be amidst all this art. It’s creatively stimulating and inspiring,” he said.
For Kerkar, it was Echoes—the new sector dedicated to works from the past five years—that held attention. At Double Q Gallery, Natalia Załuska dissolved the boundaries between two and three dimensions through immersive geometry, while Tiffany Chung’s embroidered maps of ancient spice routes contrasted with Miler Lagos’s carved book sculptures— dense, almost geological. “It was overwhelming to see so much— we’ve visited at least 10 museums and over 100 galleries. Your understanding gets richer as you see more,” he reflected.
In Hong Kong, art slips easily beyond the confines of galleries and museums, revealing itself in the city’s everyday hum and din.
Along Hollywood Road, contemporary galleries sit alongside antique dealers, while just around the corner you find graffiti-splashed lanes like Tank Lane. The spectacle shifts as you move through Nathan Road, where neon signage stacks into a kind of kinetic visual installation, before giving way to the sensory theatre of the Temple Street Night Market—its street food unfolding like a living performance of flavour and form.
Hong Kong’s food culture moves between extremes— Michelin-starred precision and the unpretentious charm of cha chaan tengs, where comfort and nostalgia are served on every plate. It’s a city where culinary excellence isn’t confined to fine dining but lives just as vividly on the streets.
Kerkar noted, “Asia, in general, is strong when it comes to street food, and Hong Kong does it exceptionally well. I’m also drawn to smaller, more acclaimed places— known for mastering a single dish. Hong Kong has many such places!”
Hong Kong reveals itself in layers. It can be frenetic or contemplative, indulgent or restrained, depending on how you choose to move through it. In many ways, it meets you where you are, becoming exactly what you need it to be in that moment.
Sachdev perhaps captured it best: “I like the fact that even though it’s such a busy and populous city, it’s still organised. While the streets may seem chaotic at first, but there’s a discipline to it, and as a designer, that’s something you recognise—it reflects a system, a way of thinking. Despite the scale and pace of it, it still feels structured and intentional.”