Horizon of Memory

Yee I-Lann was born in Sabah, Malaysia. She spent 9 years in South Australia pursuing her studies and received her BA in Visual Arts from the University of South Australia, Adelaide in 1992. Currently she teaches film production in National Arts Culture and Heritage Academy. With solid academic practice and her strong passion to image, Yee I-Lann’s works, either presented in photomedia or photo-mediated batik, reveal her competence in image composition and building up a dynamic visual scenery which always brings out unlimited imagination and interpretation.

 “I love the open desert. I love having so much space. I love stretching my eyes to a distant distant point that’s not interrupted by a tree, a building or a hill. I love that huge sky that gets heavier and heavier the longer I look at it and it lightly embraces me with all the knowledge and possibility of the universe. I love the disc of the earth, the horizon that circles me, marks me and places me Here. At this point. Here. I love having perspective. I am the center of the universe and this is my proof, everything stems from me. I can see it, it is real; it is true.”by Yee I-Lann(2003)

After returning Malaysia from Australia, Yee I-Lann created ‘Horizon’ series of photomedia material, presents a black and white expansive landscape with strong sense of surreal visualization. The deliberately placed objects have strengthened the uncanny feelings that open the opportunity for more imagination. How mainland Australia impacts and affects the artist thoroughly is revealed in the images of broad land and endless horizon line. No matter in Malaysia or in Taiwan, our sight is often blocked by artificial buildings as well as natural mountains due to the geographical feature of big population and heavy-load environment. Thus, we are gradually losing the ability and opportunity to horizontally expand our field of view. It is assumable that how excited I-Lann could be while the Australian vast plain and long horizon line first came across her eyes.

‘During my recent stay in Australia I became obsessed with the horizon line. I found myself surrounded by this circular continuous line that separated the red disc of earth I stood on from a cloudless blue sky above.’

In addition to praise the horizons on the appearance, I-Lann with her academic background in Australia further expands her vision of art, subtlely expressing her suspicion of the former Chief Executive of Malaysia Mahathir bin Mohamad’s political slogan "Vision 2020" (Wawasan 2020) . Mahathir as Malaysian prime minister for 22 years (1981-2003), successfully transformed Malaysia into a modern and industrial country, made economic grow far ahead than other countries in Southeast Asia, second to Singapore, and his famous "vision 2020 "also strengthened the Malay's sense of togetherness. However, after all the good numbers, is the truth really so beautiful behind the scene of prosperity and progress? The artist intentionally adding “W” in the front and “AN” in the end on a road sign written "AWAS" (AWAS hereby means "be careful"), made it to "WAWASAN "(" vision " in Malay) meaning " Watch Vision”! The warning and refection to the well-known slogan are played out in the kitschy road sign.

In another work entitled Horizon: In the Palm of Putrajaya, the artist by arranging a large number of computer-aided local Malaysian palm trees which almost obscured the distant horizon in the back, highlighted a Muslim woman who holds an ID card blocking her eyes. We couldn’t clearly see what’s written on the document, nor could we barely see the woman's face ... ... Yee I-Lann uses this photo to convey the close intimacy between Malay and their homeland. The relationship cannot be cut out for any terms of difference. As for the identity and symbols imposed by the nation, I-Lann considers pointless,  just like the vague document appeared in the image. 

Compared to the expansive natural horizon, ‘Malaysiana’ series created one year earlier could be regarded as an artificial horizon line, shown in a form of arranged old photo collection of similar background and posture. Those old photos not only carry the past memory and emotion of Malaysia, but also are the beginning of I-Lann’s macroscopic vision. The statement has been made by a curator Beverly Yong in a magazine, PhotoArtAsia of 2008. 'Malaysiana' series indeed is a collaboration project done between the artist and a local senior photography studio, Pakard Photo. I-Lann has collected a bunch of portraitures from the studio and patiently categorized the different photo groups to an aligned photo collage as a series of microfilm addressing the history. The neat photo arrangement clearly shows the living and cultural clip from the past. Through repetition of the image stack, display of similar clothing style, and entire feelings of the Malay, I-Lann quietly translate the personal vocabulary to national, racial, and cultural identity, making a perfect reflection of Malaysian background as being a great Asia melting pot.

Besides, Taiwanese would have stronger connection to these ordinary photos of civilians since we share similar memories and experience. We could sense the intense feeling of kinship family, as well as the vigor and passion of young generation. The most important thing is that the photos convey the common wish of future expectation and desire of pursuing stability and belonging, which is undoubtedly eternal emotion of the entire mankind in the regardless of age, nation, race, and culture.

The horizons from these two series seem a great contrast- color vs. black and white, artificial vs. natural, realism vs. poetry, narrow vs. vast- but each implies for the same exploration and concern of national history, culture, kinship, and ethnic identity. From the reference of I-Lann’s image production, we would be able to fully understand her capability of in-depth exploration and care to the issues of Malaysian politics and culture. It is always her core ideology of art creation through the whole time.