“When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us the state of our decay.”
Brian W. Aldiss
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Bio
Grace Wawa Yang was born in Taiwan and raised in Canada. She obtained her BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) from Emily Carr University of Art and Design in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. She has recently received her MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in Photography, from The New School University, Parsons of Art and Design, in New York City, USA.
She currently works and lives in New York City, and Beijing.
Grace Wawa Yang’s practice is a continuous experimentation into the problems of truthful representation. Her artwork is inspired by her memories and dreams contrasted with the notion of collective consciousness. Memories naturally fade and become distorted; however shared beliefs – often represented in Yang’s work through the use of fairytales and childhood imagery – are not so fragile.
Childhood play is an activity associated with freedom and fun, it is also a process of indoctrination through which children learn about rules and boundaries. In Yang’s practice the idea of play theory embodies dueling concepts; learning and limits, living and dying. Using digital photography and mixed media sculpture, she utilizes absolute visions of childhood and then distorts them with suggestions of pain and mortality. Through beautiful yet sinister imagery, Yang questions the state of freewill in childhood; a state we can never be sure we fully remember in adulthood.
Yang’s work exists in an elusive space where personal memories are absorbed into communal stories. She reveals undeniable beauty in the process through which lost memories are found again as shared nostalgia. However, she also inserts a knife into the beauty of reminiscence, reminding us that every new recollection is preceded by the little death of forgetting.
Workshop at the 4th World Children’s Art Festival
Location: National Mall, Between 4th and 7th Streets, near the Capitol Building.
Date: June 17–18 (Friday & Saturday), 2011.
Time: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Help a child find their voice
Balloon Project – Think out Loud
Think Out Loud is an interactive project that explores how children experience the world and how, as adults, we can revisit those experiences. Between the innocence of childhood and the socialization of maturity, we develop unique and refined ways to express ourselves. However, through this process of learning to communicate with others we also grow up and forget the instinctive impulses we had as children. The project creates a safe environment for children to record their spontaneous expressions. Children will be invited to write and draw their thoughts onto custom-made balloons that represent “thought bubbles.” They can express anything they like: their ideal world, things they want to say to their parents, their secrets, etc. These bubbles will then be launched as floating anonymous voices for all to experience.
This project is sponsored by Columbia University, Child Psychiatric Epidemiology Group / NYSPI. For more information, please visit http://www.icaf.org
Upcoming Solo Exhibition
Tapir Berlin Gallery
Location: Weserstraße 11, 10247 Berlin- F’hain, Germany
Opening: July 24th, 2011, Time: 11h00~15h00
Permanent Exhibition
A Game in the Afternoon
22 November 2010 – ongoing
Suggested time to view artwork: 12h15 – 16h00
La Macina Di San Cresci
Greve in Chianti – Firenze
Via San Cresci 1
info@chianticom.com
My work has always been inspired by children; their games, imaginations and natural selves. Children are reflections. They help us understand our own existence through showing us our origins, while also reminding us of our own mortality.
A Game in the Afternoon is my response to the environment of Greve in Chianti, a Tuscan town in Italy. In particular, I was inspired by Pieve di San Cresci (my artist residency), a parish church which sits on a hillside overlooking Greve. This 10th century Romanesque building features its original main portico flanked by mullioned windows with domed bricked-in arches above. Taking a walk one sunny day around the church’s exterior, I looked up at the shapes of the bricked-over portals and was reminded of the game of hopscotch. Looking down I saw my own shadow on the floor and the artwork was born.
The oldest reference to hopscotch dates from the 17th Century – although it was possibly invented earlier by the Romans – when children took inspiration from stained glass windows in churches to create the layout of the game. These children also used their Christian beliefs to formulate the rules; most hopscotch courts from the past end on a seventh step shaped like a domed arch which represents “home” or “heaven”. The number of steps also refers to the “seven steps to heaven”.
A Game in the Afternoon creates a modern version of the Christian stained glass window with my graphic drawing on transparency paper suspended between San Cresci’s semi-circular portico entranceway. In the afternoon, sunshine beams through the paper to create a perfect stepped shadow on the stone floor, ready for hopscotch. This shadow game will appear around 12h15 to 16h00. However, its visibility is also dependent on Mother Nature, since the days are shorter in winter and the sun less reliable. On a cloudy day, or outside the suggested time frame, only numbers on the floor will indicate where the game should be. These numbers stretch towards the church entrance, with the seventh step falling on San Cresci’s heavy door, reflecting a simple truth of the game. It can never be finished unless you enter the church, the domed step to heaven.
A Game in the Afternoon, is permanently installed at the San Cresci Church in Tuscany.
All images are copyright protected © Grace Wawa Yang, 2008–2010. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.