Yiyang Yang

With his project The waves will carry us far, Yiyang presents a profound and detailed reflection on personal memory and family history, inspired by global upheavals such as the pandemic and incessant wars.
Yiyang begins her work by exploring her own family's memories to uncover the story of her paternal grandmother. Her successive movements forged a complex and multifaceted identity, which she passed on to her descendants. In a video, her grandmother shares her memories of different countries and eras, naturally shifting identities during the discussion. This shift in identity reflects the multiple facets of her migratory experience and the complexities of her cultural adaptation. Yiyang also draws inspiration from the work of Bouchra Khalili, The Mapping Journey, presented at the Venice Biennale. Yiyang created a world map using the indigo dye technique, but recentering the map on the Indian Ocean. This different perspective aims to present migrations from the Global South in a non-Western-centric way. By focusing on this region, Yiyang highlights narratives often marginalized in traditional representations of world history. To complement his work, Yiyang organized a performance that aimed to evoke not only the nostalgia of reunion, but also solastalgia, a term referring to the psychological pain caused by significant environmental changes. Through his work, Yiyang invites us to reflect on the value and fragility of personal stories, and how they are woven into the vast fabric of world history. This exploration serves as a reminder of the importance of preserving and transmitting individual narratives, as they constitute essential elements of our collective understanding of history and our identity.