The China Project

257 WILLIAM YANG: LIFE LINES William Yang is a rare presence in contemporary Australian art. A photographer in the social documentary tradition, he has consistently recorded his life over the past four decades — from his family in far north Queensland and elsewhere, to the overlapping artistic and gay scenes in his adopted home of Sydney, to his travels around Australia and the world. His direct, unpretentious photographs provide a unique chronicle of Australian cultural life, infused with a curiosity about people and a desire to picture those who sit outside of Australia’s mainstream. Yang’s gently political stance arises from his own search for identity, as a third-generation Australian–Chinese, a gay man, and an artist. Since 1989, Yang has visited China five times, enabling him to explore his cultural heritage and family history, as well as to create new contexts for his work. Since the early 1990s, Yang has been presenting photographs from his enormous archive as projections accompanied by monologues — a performance form he has made his own, and that has gathered wide acclaim. Around the same time, he began writing directly onto his photographs, placing them more clearly within his personal narrative. He continues to exhibit his photographs in galleries, and has published a number of books. For ‘The China Project’, Yang has developed two new installations that focus on portraiture. The first, Life lines , is a large collage of family portraits and images of historical Chinese sites in Australia, created for the Gallery of Modern Art’s foyer wall. The second, an installation of self-portraits, traces the artist’s life from early childhood to the present, touching on his experiences and interests along the way, in particular his exploration of his Chinese heritage. Accompanying these photographs is a collection of personal objects that enhance and extend this narrative of Yang’s life. A Conversation with William Yang William in scholar’s costume, 1984 (from ‘GoMA self-portrait’ series) 2008 Digital print, ed. 1/20 / 94.5 x 62.7cm / Collection: The artist russell storer