Funa Ye 葉甫納

About my work ________________________________________________________________

My practice is mainly concerned with the relationship between the realities of every day life, the perceived connection between authority and many areas of social life such as different power structure, ethnic groups, and the fictional space of propaganda for the concept of ‘perfection’ in an ideological system, and utopian landscape. Therefore, my work is politically charged, subtly engaged in pastiche as a satirizing style of propaganda. My work is rich in reference, parody and irony of the uniformity cultures. I will continue to classify pictures with similar invention, and investigate and analyze typical images – especially the I.D photos, which represent the face of the general public. The ongoing creation of my work will be based on the art research.

In the interim show, I showed some new material I have been working on: I am using the typical form of 1-inch I.D photos, and shooting out of "Static films". An I.D photo was shot in the same set up as a typical one, but the people were asked to stay in the same position while facing the camera for long time. Although they are mainly moving images, I place the concepts and ideas of photographic genres into a kind of ‘moving’ photograph. As a photographic subject, most people try to present a perfect and positive face to the camera. However, with the extended shooting time, the people could not help blinking, bowing their heads, and moving facial expressions. The I.D photographs are reminiscent not only of personal identities, but represent a rigid social system of the individual requirement and limitation. It is an interesting conflict between comfortable and nervousness. I.D photo shoots usually make people nervous. On the contrary, a long shot, helps people to be natural and comfortable. Benjamin (2000), pointed out that the early age photography since it had a long time exposure, it will instead show a sense of reality - the people in photo are relaxed, the eyes are staring at a distant expression. He has named these kinds of photos "Illuminations." I tap the individual emotions which are hidden in the formal from, which are 1-inch photos, to discuss the possibilities of the existence of individual consciousness in rigid conditions.

Video seems significant to my current practice, because it is the only way of showing the process of "Static films", which should come with the features ‘timeline’ of video. However, there is no specific requirement of media in most of my works. I would like to work on a thoughtful sight-specific or multi-media project in future. So there are numbers of concerns that I need to address. I need to be more explorative with my material, making sure they are properly explored and exploited in order to develop them into a more diverse practice. Then I started to expand my practice by using other formats, such as photography and performance. Now, I am practically learning some traditional skills of shot photo and film processing, which could help me have better understanding about the I.D photo, time and the object.