Wherein one nods with political sympathy and says I understand you better than you understand yourself, I’m just here to help you help yourself

2013 - Photography (Photography)

62.99 x 62.99 cm

Yee I-Lann

location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
year born: 1971
gender: female
nationality: Malaysian
home town: Sabah, Malaysia

Sarcastically titled to call attention to the problematic notions underlying colonialism, this photograph shows hundreds of Native Malaysians seated quietly behind one of their colonial oppressors. The artwork belongs to Yee’s series Picturing Power (2013) that deals with the destabilizing impacts of neo-colonialism and globalization on Southeast Asia’s history. Yee approaches the aesthetics and politics of the ethnographic gaze with both irony and humanity, challenging the modes of seeing inherent to the British colonization of Malaysia.


Addressing the turbulent geopolitical history of Southeast Asia’s archipelagos, Yee’s photography-based practice engages with issues of colonialism, neo-colonialism, structures of power, and historical memory. Yee I-Lann’s photography and photomontages explore colonial histories by addressing notions of power, historical memory, and visual culture. She draws upon many visual sources including popular culture, archival photographs, and everyday objects. Surfacing histories and knowledge that counter dominant narratives in Malaysian culture, Yee employs a complex visual vocabulary drawn from historical references, popular culture, archives, and everyday objects. She has recently begun working collaboratively with sea-based and land-based communities and Indigenous mediums in Sabah, Borneo. Yee is also a co-founding associate of The Ricecooker Archives: Southeast Asian Rock ’n’ Roll Treasury with her partner Joe Kidd and has worked as a production designer in the Malaysian film industry.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Color Photography, » Contemporary Conceptualism, » Documentary Photography, » Film/Video, » Malaysian

Exquisite Eco Living (executive Properties series)
© » KADIST

Vincent Leong

2012

The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...

VertiGhost
© » KADIST

Lynn Hershman Leeson

2017

Using the seminal 1958 film Vertigo as a launchpad, Lynn Hershman Leeson explores the blurred lines between fact and fantasy in VertiGhost , a film commissioned by the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco...

Cinema
© » KADIST

Fang Lu

2013

In the work Cinema , Fang Lu explores in a meticulous yet un-dramatic — almost casual — way of how “the self” in our today’s life is a controlled and staged construction of oneself...

Bus Logos
© » KADIST

Yto Barrada

2004

In this photographic series, Yto Barrada was interested in the logos of the buses that travel between North Africa and Europe...

Walking Through
© » KADIST

Koki Tanaka

2009

Walking Through is one of a series of videos—sometimes humorous, often absurd—that record the artist’s performative interactions with objects in a particular site...

Lift with care
© » KADIST

Hu Yun

2013

This research-based artwork acts as a memorial to early twentieth century European exploration of China...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Trisha Donnelly

2007

Untitled is a black-and-white photograph of a wave just before it breaks as seen from the distance of an overlook...

Iris Tingitana Oxalis
© » KADIST

Yto Barrada

2007

This photograph is part of the series titled “Iris Tingitana project” (2007) focusing on the disappearance of the iris...

Tarantism
© » KADIST

Joachim Koester

2007

Tarantism is the name of disease which appeared in southern Italy, resulting from the bite of a spider called Tarantula...

Stanley "Tom" Durrell, Tinsmith
© » KADIST

Sharon Lockhart

2008

Lockhart’s film Lunch Break investigates the present state of American labor, through a close look at the everyday life of the workers at the Bath Iron Works shipyard—a private sector of the U...

!Women Art Revolution
© » KADIST

Lynn Hershman Leeson

2010

Hershman Leeson’s documentary, Women Art Revolution (W...

Up All Night, Waiting for the Chelsea Hotel Magic to Spark my Creativity
© » KADIST

Mario Garcia Torres

2010

In Up All Night, Waiting for the Chelsea Hotel Magic to Spark My Creativity Mario García Torres constructs and documents a hypothetical scene, situating himself within a lineage of artists and creatives that used to congregate at the historic hotel...

Office Work
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2018

Office Work by Walead Beshty consists of a partially deconstructed desktop monitor screen, cleanly speared through its center onto a metal pole...

Black Curl (CMY/Five Magnet: Irvine, California, March 25, 2010, Fujicolor Cyrstal Archive Super Type C, EM No 165-021, 05910)
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2010

Black Curl (CMY/Five Magnet: Irvine, California, March 25, 2010, Fujicolor Cyrstal Archive Super Type C, EM No 165-021, 05910) is a visually compelling photogram...

Strange Culture
© » KADIST

Lynn Hershman Leeson

2007

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s genre-bending documentary Strange Culture tells the story of how one man’s personal tragedy turns into persecution by a paranoid, conservative, and overzealous government...

Frontier-Linear
© » KADIST

Doug Aitken

2009

The version of Frontier acquired by the Kadist Collection consists of a single-channel video, adapted from the monumental installation and performance that Aitken presented in Rome, by the Tiber River, in 2009...

A poem written by 5 poets at once (first attempt)
© » KADIST

Koki Tanaka

2013

This artwork was part of a group of projects presented in the Japanese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013...

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...