Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Kai Oi Joyce Yung Portfolio
Kai Oi Joyce Yung Portfolio
Portfolio
1
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
2
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
3
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
4
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
5
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
6
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
7
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
8
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
9
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
10
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
Address 1
Amnesia
Scene
11
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
New World
Traces
12
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
Following Bauhaus
13
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
Kultureferrat, Munich
14
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
15
IMAGES: INSTALLATION
Sonic Blob
16
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
1
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
2
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
3
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
4
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
5
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
6
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
7
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
UQ&IA Performance
8
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
9
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
10
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
11
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
12
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
13
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
14
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
15
SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT/INTERACTION
16
PERFORMANCE
Gestalt, Calvert 22
1
PERFORMANCE
2
PERFORMANCE
3
PERFORMANCE
4
PERFORMANCE
5
PERFORMANCE
6
PERFORMANCE
7
PERFORMANCE
8
PERFORMANCE
9
PERFORMANCE
10
PERFORMANCE
11
PERFORMANCE
12
PERFORMANCE
Amnesia, A Rehearsal
13
PERFORMANCE
Shadow Trace
14
SCULPTURE
Rabbid
Joker
1
SCULPTURE
Ming
Spongimal
2
SCULPTURE
Tubular Blossom
Twins
3
SCULPTURE
Humph
Dodi
4
SCULPTURE
Larry
Vincent
Stoopid Void
5
SCULPTURE
Void Eagle
6
SCULPTURE
Lilac Ring
7
SCULPTURE
French Fancies
8
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
1
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
2
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
3
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
Limit
4
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
Monolith
I Become Lost
5
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
404 Man
Blobs
6
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
No Tricks
7
DRAWINGS/PAINTINGS/COLLAGE
8
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
Tate
1
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
2
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
Tate Treasures
3
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
4
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
5
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
6
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
7
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
Unrealised Potential
8
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
9
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
Smiths Row
Carousel Project
10
EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS AND COURSE DEVISAL
11
TALKS/WORKSHOPS
Liverpool Biennial
Mediamatic, Amsterdam
1
TALKS/WORKSHOPS
KIAD, Kent
2
TALKS/WORKSHOPS
Grizedale Arts
3
TALKS/WORKSHOPS
Encounters, Sheffield
4
TALKS/WORKSHOPS
5
ARTICLES & TEXT
Wrongteous
1
ARTICLES & TEXT
27 Senses
Chisenhale Gallery, London
2010
Kai-Oi Jay Yung
Commissioned by Arts Council England
27 Senses has been a long time coming, the curators text words reveal a simplistic
deep-seated desire rooted in celebrating, recapturing, reminding and reoffering a part
of the lost, hidden and forgotten story of the significant artist Kurt Schwitters to
challenge and reconfigure our present collective memory of his significance and what
we know of his private and public life. The departure point is to trace time in Norway
following the economic and political turmoil of Nazi Germany and his own nomadic
path resultant of his exile as degenerate artist.
Any forced confusion, struggle and obstacle in the lengthy process that undeniably
ensued this attempt to embark on a research tour that retraces Schwitters Hjertoya
and specifically, his potato shack-like Hutte/studio is absent from this show. Through
careful selection of artists in this group show, we experience different perspectives in
this story through a seamless transposal into location and dimensions of Chisenhale
itself.
The visitor enters the space as though through the gates of a narrow walled settlement
with its confines defined by the architectural housing that unites all the component
works. At first we are unsure of the direction to take, our viewpoint of the space as a
whole is interrupted by the angles, bevels and curves of the predominant physical
structures carved by McGeorge, which in their homogenous pale wooden tones block
ones panoramic scope to gather any easy overview of the space and individual
elements.
Von Hausswolffs Branden film/narrative documentary is projected onto the far end
of the semi- enclosed office like space. The strange open plan room, grey carpet and
5/6 black chairs create a small cinema almost as though were seated in the confined
cabin of a boat, the least obtrusive and most intimate blank canvas to absorb viewers
cast gaze onto the mesmerising plodding pace and crystalline sound of The Fire.
Filmed in 1971, the imagery, removed from present through seamless black/white flits
between stills documenting Lamms crew and equipment, gliding footage of
! "!
2
ARTICLES & TEXT
Between Kismet and Karma. South Asian Women Artists Respond to Conflict
Between Kismet and Karma is a stunning achievement. It has great academic, political and
theoretical value, certainly. But what makes it unique is the stunning creativity, beauty and
insight of the artists work. I am humbled by their profound seriousness and commitment
and their powerful aggregation of issues of conflict, nationality, culture, society and gender to
create artworks of breathtaking vision and power. I have discovered what it is that lies between
Thoughtful, provocative and mind-expanding, the Between Kismet and Karma intervention
in our Alchemy Festival made me grateful that we have the collective passion and
intelligence of Shisha. The challenges faced by their artists and crafts people to help shape
our world positively is balanced by their passion and determination to do so.
Jude Kelly
Artistic Director, Southbank Centre
Between Kismet and Karma: South Asian Women Artists Respond to Conflict was conceived by Shisha in
curatorial partnership with the University of Leeds. This full-colour publication explores the projects
complex creative web of programmes, including the central exhibition, as well as the affiliated symposium,
Beyond Borders; artist residencies; film programme and various interventions. It also includes evaluative
feedback from the project as a whole.
Between Kismet and Karma provides an engaging and enlightening view of the featured artists,
artwork and audiences, and addresses the curatorial themes of gender, home, body, environment and
nation. The publication provides a platform for artists, curators, academics and audiences to revisit,
question and reflect on this multifaceted and unique programme, which was organised in collaboration
with a myriad of partnerships, including museums, galleries, artist networks and universities across
the UK and South Asia.
Kissing
Fate
Kai-Oi Jay Yung
My initial raised eyebrow to an exhibition tagged adages are accurate or specific to one religion
Between Kismet and Karma: South Asian Women or another, it was a reflection that we have to
Artists Respond to Conflict sprang from concern begin somewhere to understand positions of
that a show purporting to platform contempo- cultural difference and belief. It highlights the
rary post-colonial socio-political contexts across importance of the individual to effectuate any
South Asia through purely selected female artistic such change, in the same manner the sympo-
representations, could only serve to homoge- sium, film programme and events by this col-
nously group diverse ethnicities under an anon- laboration between Shisha and the University
ymous geographical art banner. Rather than of Leeds sought to facilitate exposure to
signify the precedence of such an exhibition; largely Western public audiences.
gender, cultural/ethnic origin and the tensions
intertwined between inhabitants and nation Colombo-based artist Anoli Pereras Elastic
states from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan to Dress visually arrests the viewer upon entering
Sri Lanka perhaps such an agenda was to rele- the gallery. The blood-red, triffid-like dress
gate tendencies to deal with specific multiple sprawls, an amorphous bleeding of the traditional
conflict sites through the generic themed art red-dot bindi, into a threatening crawling em-
from the other; female and ethnic. bodiment, contorting female dress and body
into an uncontrolled latex mass. Her sketch-like
My encounter with two visitors at Leeds Art watercolours serve as a backdrop narrative,
Gallery, both Indian one Hindu and the other suggesting the biological gender constraints of
Sikh was to prelude the underlying strength of childbirth and motherhood they hint at the
this show and remove my doubt. They informed womans role and media filtering of self-percep-
me Kismet and Karma simultaneously connoted tion eating disorders, plastic surgery such
LEFT
fate, the deed, whilst Kismet upturns this notion ideas then explode into the dramatic high
Amour Suit for through a magical hope of unknown destiny. colour and sensual, tactile physicality of the
Rani of Jhansi
What will be will be or keep doing what you garment. There is something inescapable, op-
Naiza H Khan
2008 want to do, the rest will follow. Whether such pressive about the sheer volume of material.
32 EXHIBITION EXHIBITION 33
That the trail of this bridal gown is tautly pinned the patched tea-skin transforms her into a
to two sides of the gallery wall, gesture and emo- potentially menacing oversized owl, removing
tional response is bound in frustration. The inter- any sense of recognition, thus the female
mittent pinning enables the parade of flowing becomes unseen. These notions extend into
fabric. We are forced to take in each laborious her second video performance, Living Sculpture.
hand-made chain-mailing loop; it is then that This time her guise is a colourful patterned fabric.
we begin to comprehend the specificity of the Through the obscured camera views, she again
artists cultural biography, beyond the expected. confuses the viewers capacity to locate her, is
she amongst the market hustle and bustle of
Sujeewa Kumari Weerasinghes video performance envisaged New Delhi or Islamabad, or a busy
Skin of the White Teabags is poetic and subtle Sri Lankan port?
in its summoning of its Eurasian origins, synon-
ymous with British Tetley and the mystical trade of The themes pervade between the exhibits and
the China Silk route through India to what across the Asian diasporic starting points of each
appears to be Brighton beach, or perhaps Hik- artist. The simplicity of Shilpa Guptas 100 Hand
kaduwu. We cannot locate the artist, clad in a hand- Drawn Maps of India is captivating, cleverly
stitched cloak organically layering her skin with enticing solitary viewing that bridges an instinctive
tea bags; passers-by are bemused. She morphs relationship between the viewer and Guptas
between Pereras Elastic Dress and the iconoclastic collaborators. Each participant attempts to trace
portraits and symbols of fellow artist Tayeba an outline of India from memory. The simple
Begum Lipi. Weerasinghe elapses notions of black lines rhythmically flit in size and shape;
perception, tradition and time from Pereras orientating perceptions of Guptas homeland.
watercolours and dress into the digital enhanced The nave identifications are humble, honest; no
washed tones and grained textures of her surreally outlines are identical, triggering us to contemplate
abstracted film. The slow motion and soporific the accuracy of personal perception and how
sound lulls us into a disorienting dream space such borders and divisions were enforced. Where
that negates any attempt to fetishise the gaze; something so specific as a country is outlined,
PAGE34 ABOVE
Works by Tayeba Begum Lipi Untitled
Between Kismet and Karma Sadia Salim, 2008
Exhibition Between Kismet and Karma
Leeds Art Gallery Exhibition
6 March 9 May 2010 Leeds Art Gallery
6 March 9 May 2010
PAGE35
Works by Naiza H Khan RIGHT
Between Kismet and Karma In Our Times
Exhibition Shilpa Gupta, 2008
Leeds Art Gallery Between Kismet and Karma
6 March 9 May 2010 Exhibition
Leeds Art Gallery
6 March 9 May 2010
36 EXHIBITION EXHIBITION 37
3
ARTICLES & TEXT
LEFT& RIGHT
About Elsewhere
Priya Sen
2007
100 Hand Drawn Maps of India engenders bolism, boldly confronting the viewer from painting in response to such heritage and discourse on Hindu mythology. Her photo-
breathing space since it does not necessitate a the canvas surface. Her depictions of Madhu- change. Her works effortlessly merge the graphs situate these anti-garment effigies in a
specific cultural language to relate to the bani village women, Gothna trade rituals in- potentially irreconcilable bi-polaric hereditary seascape, subtly forging a transitional link to
artist/biographical place. The participatory terspersed with links to British rule and past and post-colonial present. the soldering and material of Yasmine Kabirs
element pared down to a single channel pro- monarchy through the figure of Elizabeth ship-breaking video, and hinting at Guptas
jection prompts us to consider how we know and use of indigo dye all conjure the place In the adjacent gallery, Weerasinghes and kinetic sound piece, In Our Times, whose
our rights and customs, borders, political Asian style, tone, pattern, despite their Pereras skins transform into Naiza H Khans singingvoice teases viewers into the main
boundaries, and ultimately our relationship abstraction. These collages offer pointed galvanised steel skirts and corsets which con- gallery space, and unfurls us into a spacious
with ourselves and neighbours. references to those defining customs con- trast the allegoric impenetrable female warrior arrangement of video and ceramics.
figuring the individuals understanding of na- with the seductive feminine. Leather, zips,
The six portraitures by Dhaka-based artist tion state and modern day identity in Ban- feathers seamlessly melded together to compose The drive of Priya Sens About Elsewhere is a
Tayeba Begum Lipi resonate colour and sym- gladesh, as well as a taste of contemporary incongruous outfits for current day female welcome contrast in pace. This video work
38 EXHIBITION EXHIBITION 39
LEFT smacks of diarist style/MTV footage. Sen deals with basic freedoms, Kashmir territorial conflict,
Measured, Stitched and
Stretched Series (detail) menacing contemporary points of conflict through Muslim-Hindu separatism, terrorism, female
Anoli Perera edited anecdotes and the guise of the unassum- victimisation and Partition are all pertinently
2009
ing characters featured. A hand duck puppet bounded and encapsulated in In Our Times.
FOLLOWING PAGE addresses homosexuality, whilst a child re-enacts There is no fear or shame here to air these myriad
Elastic Dress and narrates, I am going to slay you, conjuring histories. The rhythmic quality of Guptas voice
Anoli Perera
2010 memories of the brutalities of the Nepalese palace is disarming, the dreamlike singsong drifting
massacre. The internal/external dialogue I am throughout the space is removed from human
not sure why I said that is delivered via split interaction it is made fact and incarcerated
screens, whilst the threading humour renders via the automated mechanisation of the kinetically
the discordant text to sonic and image addictive. balancing sculpture. The Tryst with Destiny
speech printed and displayed as one of the
The humble simplicity of Guptas maps is reincar- three texts read by Gupta herself is similarly
nated in the somewhat solitary sadness of Ka- disconcerting; it blocks any rupture between past-
birs The Last Rites. The minimalist film score future/lose-win stalemates, and we reflect upon
heightens an eerie, ghostly portrayal of decline the karma of Nehrus promise to Bollywood
in Bangladeshs shipbuilding industry. Tiny figures Mumbai, amidst recent media saturation en-
are cast against monolithic ships, the footage capsulating Slumdog Millionaire romantic love
documents children playing in amongst the against endogamy a Tryst with Destiny.
broken parts and pieces crates, components,
pipes this rusting iron graveyard becomes an There is melancholy here; the piece suggests
attempt to salvage trade inhabitants scrabble no peaceful resolution to these points of con-
for any worthy treasure amongst the waste. tention; voices and aspirations are locked within
the swinging microphone as we watch their rise
Alongside this, Sadia Salims ceramic works, which and fall. Our position is that of apocalyptic es-
cast everyday objects and lines of verse and trangement devoid of human recognition save
conversational fragments into the firing process the voice, and we are forced to question; time
together, point to poverty and our displaced has passed but has the way we live progressed?
communities; a certain fragility of the structures
we live in. Both connote the geopolitical relations The curatorial approach of Between Kismet and
between countries and the international trading Karma punctures any easy glazed bid to explore
arena such as Bangladeshs commerce with issues of heritage and identity and enables disparate
northeast India in attempt to curtail further defi- views on emblematic South Asia and our relation
cit, or implications of wider macro socio-political to them. The works proliferate new openings for
forces that determine the individual fate at micro understanding long and complex socio-political
level; job, food, shoes. Is this how belief in contexts through converging the diverse artforms
Kismet may save us? and reflections of prolific female artists from Sri
Lanka to India whilst fracturing any singular
Guptas In Our Times, singing mobile microphone interpretation. The show does not preach, but
appears to culminate all the wrangling themes prompts viewers to quietly weigh and critically
emanating the show into one sonorous, kinetic question any two-dimensional social stigmas con-
voice piece. Here, the tumultuous and violent cerning class, international agenda, inter-communal
realities of unsavoury proxy war, Mumbais throbbing co-existence and individual desires despite gender,
overpopulation and consequential inner city race or religion. At once playful and powerful,
dysfunction, right-wing propaganda, struggle for here difference is able to self-tessellate.
Kai-Oi Jay Yung
Interdisciplinary Artist
42 EXHIBITION EXHIBITION 43
4
ARTICLES & TEXT
Changing Climates
5
ARTICLES & TEXT
6
ARTICLES & TEXT
Archiving Place & Time: Contemporary Art Practice in Northern Ireland since the Belfast
Agreement
Wolverhampton Art Gallery
2010
Kai-Oi Jay Yung
Commissioned by Arts Council England
This exhibition commendably deals with the complex and sensitive intricacies of
contemporary art practice in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement came into
force in December 1999. A wide variety of works reflect the political aftermath of an
economic and living environment shaped and scarred by over 3 decades of violence, fear,
hatred and warring factions.
On entry to the gallery directly to our right, Conor Mcfeelys Disclaimer confronts us. The
gallery cordon instructs we cannot enter this installation, but the well-ordered rows of
sandbag oddities and wall aligned baseball bats are prohibiting in their regimentation. The
small bags are made from prison blankets, some marked with thick black tar that binds them
to the ground. The baseball bats are intermittent colours, sandy beige following washed out
red. Both suggest the new threats dominating Northern Irelands communities- that perhaps of
gang culture which replaces the sirens and bombs.
Disclaimer sets the agenda for the exhibition; marking a movement towards the deployment
of contemporary visual expression from those having personally lived through the memory of
the past and direct involvement and concern with its future.
This resonates through the pair of photographic diptychs hung on the adjacent wall, by Willie
Doherty and Sandra Johnston. Dohertys silver gelatin prints provide a stark physical
manifestation of Johnstons more concept laden C type prints. Donegal Lane is a bleak
snapshot into an eerie stillness, a street backed off by a barbed wired wall to the left and
boarded up shops to the right. The lane leads the eye to a big windowless Soviet like bloc,
there is little to suggest hope and fruition here. Meanwhile, we are further entrapped in
Footbridge/The Westlink. This ominous footpath running above the Westlink dual
carriageway demarcates the Catholic and Protestant divide, again the concrete encaged
cityscape is desolate and old replaces new with homophobic graffiti and also a new footbridge
which is a bright red and more open in design. That the bridge depicted here has been
dismantled and replaced serves as archive to the past and point of symbolic change for those
familiar with the story.
Johnstons imagery then suggests an explanation for Dohertys resultant imagery. A close up
of what appears to be a stone tablet with all text obscured except the abbreviation Vol and
its neighbouring image of white washed graffiti both point to a war prolonged by a
bombardment of voices fighting to be heard and consequential breach in duration, trust and
safety of a treaty. Given the history of instability of Northern Irelands peace process to date,
can there be sustained agreement?
! "!
7
ARTICLES & TEXT
8
ARTICLES & TEXT
9
ARTICLES & TEXT
10
ARTICLES & TEXT
11
ARTICLES & TEXT
Unrealised Potential
12
ARTICLES & TEXT
Polands recently rewritten Communist history situate Macugas Nature of the Beast
in the intricacies of the Iraq invasion and its aftermath and the countrys partitioning
and civilian loss during the second world war.
On entry there is a video screen to our left with three chairs, separate headphones and
on the floor leading to the screen is an Afghan rug, situating what we are about to
watch. Welcome The United Nations of Iraq is woven across the top, banner like it
relocates atrocities of Spanish civil war embedded in the Guernica tapestry symbolism
into the long history of war torn Iraq. The rugs territories are delineated in warm sand
tones, its modest size rendering it kitsch in relation to the tapestry. Made
anonymously by Iraqi and Armenian filmmakers, the 20 minute film Operation
Phantom Fury rallies anti-US sentiment since we see footage and perspectives
unlikely exposed in our media channels concerning the cluster bombing and missiles
destroying of Fallujah. This further heightens debate surrounding recent equipment
supplies and UK troop presence as we watch the mass exodus of refuges and those
displaced in the aftermath of aerial bombardment targeting the city with little regard
for the civilian population. The narrator informs us of the removal of human rights as
at times romanticised imagery and music is interspersed by short interviews with
displaced women and injured men we watch as they flee from noisy explosions,
crumbling of their buildings and dereliction of their city, survivors digging trenches to
bury the dead, at times, almost like a computer game, recalling Harun Farockis
virtual simulations; the overplayed imagery, the capacity to apprehend the conclusive
brutality of such war. This animates the disjointed limbs, tortured animal screams and
severed heads frozen in Picassos tapestry. It embellishes a somewhat flattened war
memorial of tapestry as effigy with a personalisation through the sounds, voices and
moving imagery of the documentary. As mesmerising and as bloody as Picassos
Guernica- the first city to be victim of serial bombing.
To our right- a bust of Colin Powell, modelled by Barnhart and Johnson pinpoints a
monumentus event in the story of US indictment against Iraq; Powell is seen
incarcerated in a seminal point of accusation, holding a purportedly phial of anthrax in
13
COVERAGE
1
COVERAGE
2
COVERAGE
3
COVERAGE
The Herald
Liverpool Echo
4
COVERAGE
BBC Radio
5
COVERAGE
Cornerhouse
January 2011
www.cornerhouse.org
Listings information
ground for innovation and
cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Exhibition produced by
Cornerhouse, with initial
Art/Exhibitions & Events 02 development through the
Film/New Releases 07 Micro Commissions
programme supported by
Courses 11 the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Books 12
www.cornerhouse.org/mico Tour/Interval;
A Narrative Psychosis
Information 14 Sat 15 Jan
Food/Drink 15 14:00 15:00
FREE, booking required
Image credits:
Top row: New World, Sarah Artist Kai-Oi Jay Yung will lead
Winchester; A Mystery this informal introductory tour
House. Middle row: Amnesia; of Interval; A Narrative Psychosis,
A Rehearsal, New World. discussing the themes and
Bottom row: Love, Sarah motivations surrounding her
Winchester; A Mystery House. work and inviting questions
Cover image: True Grit. All Kai-Oi Jay Yung, 2010. from participants.
All information correct at time of press. 03
6
COVERAGE
December 2010
www.cornerhouse.org
)*()-*()54 "35
In Dec Edition # 2
Get into the festive mood this
month with some heart-warming Kai-Oi Jay Yung
seasonal favourites including Interval; A Narrative
Its a Wonderful Life and The
Wizard of Oz, plus enjoy audience
Psychosis
selected classics from The
Big Lebowski to Goodfellas.
Also recommended is Julian
Schnabels Miral, which explores
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
through a moving examination
of the lives of four women.
Artist Kai-Oi Jay Yung
will be transforming Gallery 1
with a compelling video
installation as part of our annual
Edition programme. And finally, Sat 11 Dec Sun 16 Jan
dont miss the screening of Gallery 1
Rosa Barbas captivating films,
accompanying UnSpooling
Artists & Cinema. Free
7
COVERAGE
Calvert 22