CACSA PROJECTS 2011 PROJECT 3

YEE I-LANN (Malaysia) Fluid World

ARTIST TALK THURSDAY 7 APRIL 6PM BRADLEY FORUM UNISA CITY WEST CAMPUS

EXHIBITION OPENING FRIDAY 8 APRIL 68PM

CACSA 2011 Projects #3 presents the major solo exhibition Fluid World by international artist and University of South Australia graduate Yee I-Lann, in partnership with leading Malaysian gallery Valentine Willie Fine Art in Kuala Lumpur. In association with the University of SA, Yee I-Lann will be presenting an artist talk at the Bradley Forum, City West Campus the night before the exhibition opening. Yee I-Lann has spoken of her work as a means of probing and interpreting her myriad fields of interest, with threads of inquiry ranging from the impact of political structures, collective and individual experience; the cultural nexus of the Southeast Asian archipelagos seas; as well as Malaysias communal memory. In Fluid World Yee I-Lann specifically explores the interwoven concerns around notions of historical trade, social hierarchy, piracy and resistance through her new works in photomedia and photo-mediated batik from The Orang Besar Series, which was first shown in 2010. The literal translation of orang besar is big person, a common term dating back centuries and used throughout the Southeast Asian archipelago to denote a person of elite socio-political-economic standing in a community. The Orang Besar series illustrates the social structure of the orang besar, the body politic, and how this continues to be a major character in the regions political and economic nature in modern society. The series was created after a lengthy period of experimentation and research; by reinterpreting the batik medium Yee I-Lann contributes a hybrid technique filled with symbols and multiple meaning. In addition to the exhibition and artist talk, the CACSA will also make available a new publication entitled Yee I-Lann: Fluid World which charts the development of Yees practice over the past fifteen years, documenting each major series of work while further exploring the context of medium and the subject matter engaged. The title of the publication describes the context of these narratives, a fluid world of changing borders, shifting cultural identities, histories forgotten and those being writtenin general it seeks to enrich our knowledge and understanding of the Southeast Asian social, cultural and political frameworks Yees practice operates within, through short essays by regional thinkers and commentators. Yee I-Lann received her BA in Visual Arts from the University of South Australia, Adelaide in 1992. She has exhibited in the Third Asia-Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery (1999), Contemporary Commonwealth, National Gallery of Victoria, Australia (2006), Thermocline of Art: New Asian Waves, ZKM Museum of Contemporary Art, Germany (2007), New Nature, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Zealand (2007) and the 2009 Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan. Also a production designer for feature films, she straddles the South China Sea spending time between her hometown in Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur.

EXHIBITION DATES 8 APRIL15 MAY, 2011

Image: Yee I-Lann, Kain Panjang with Carnivorous Kepala, 2010 Photo courtesy the artist and Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

T 08 82 72 26 82 F 08 83 73 42 86 E program@cacsa.org.au W www.cacsa.org.au
THE CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE OF SA IS ASSISTED BY THE COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT THROUGH THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL, ITS ARTS FUNDING AND ADVISORY BODY, AND THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT THROUGH ARTS SA AND HEALTH PROMOTIONS SA. THE CONTEMPORARY ART CENTRE OF SA IS SUPPORTED BY THE VISUAL ARTS AND CRAFT STRATEGY, AN INITIATIVE OF THE AUSTRALIAN, STATE AND TERRITORY GOVERNMENTS

14 PORTER STREET PARKSIDE SOUTH AUSTRALIA 5063