Yuen Fong Ling (We are Monument, Sheffield)
Yuen Fong Ling, who is part of our Research and Learning working group and and Beyond the Obvious artist, has curated a new exhibition, “We are Monument” at Graves Gallery in Sheffield. Visit the gallery until Sat 21 December 2024 to check it out!
In the same gallery you can see Manish Harijan’s work which we recently donated to Sheffield Galleries & Museums Trust.
Yuen Fong Ling is an artist and curator based at Bloc Studios Sheffield, Senior Lecturer in Fine Art and Post Graduate Research Tutor at Sheffield Hallam University. He has a socially engaged and performance-based art practice that explores his biographical connections with permitted histories, people, places and objects. Recent projects have devised alternative forms of public monument and memorial making. This research has contributed to Commissioner evidence for Sheffield’s Race Equality Commission and Sheffield City Council’s “Decolonising Street Names, Statues and Monuments” working group. Ling was also part of the Artist Working Group for the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art’s (CFCCA) strategic revisioning.
“I’ve always believed in the transformative power of art. As a working class, migrant, queer kid, galleries and museum spaces, like libraries and school, were my safe spaces- spaces of learning and potential. That’s why I create, and teach now. I believe in it. ”
Can you tell us a bit about 'We are the Monument' - your curated exhibition at Graves Gallery in Sheffield?
The exhibition “We are the Monument” combined the new commission “Monumentalise” a series of eight short films, with a curated exhibition of artworks and objects from Sheffield’s collections.
I wanted to use the exhibition to re-engage the debate around colonial histories and how they occupy public space, through street names and monuments, so we can understand what they mean, what stories they hold for people, and how to move forward together.
Why do you create?
I’ve always believed in the transformative power of art. As a working class, migrant, queer kid, galleries and museum spaces, like libraries and school, were my safe spaces- spaces of learning and potential. That’s why I create, and teach now. I believe in it.
Do you consider yourself to be part of an artist network/community, and if so, how does this impact your practice?
As I teach, my community is very much part of this. The exhibition is such an important moment for the Fine Art team at Sheffield Hallam, as it demonstrates how teaching staff, own students, past and present, are having an impact on the fine art community and its history.
Staff members Gary Simmonds, Emma Bolland, Maud Haya-Baviera, and I, are showing alongside our alumni, Connor Rogers, Manish Harijan, and Victoria Lucas. The success is how our work as teachers, have shaped the artistic and professional lives of our students, their success is our success.
What changes would you like to see in the arts sector?
My drive is to make the arts sector more inclusive and equitable for artists of colour, and how the art school can be an accelerator of this, through better curricula, improving access, designing better activities and processes, more guidance, developing research, and widening opportunity. It’s a goal, an big ambition, a life’s work, so bring it on!
Headshot photo credit: India Hobson
Artwork photo credit: Yuen Fong Ling/ Lumo Film
Exhibition photo credit: Jules Lister
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