Curator：Xiao Ruiyun
Organiser: Three Shadows Xiamen Photography Art Centre
Venue: No. 301, Building 2, Xinglinwan Business Center, Jimei District, Xiamen
EXHIBITION PREFACE
This project, named The Invisible, is about London homeless people. There are more than 300,000 homeless people in this country and half of them live in London. I spent more than 3 months and met with more than 30 homeless people for this project. I sat on the street with each of them for hours and hours to interview them and document their life. I ate with them and sometimes slept outside with them. This is certainly a project about homelessness, but it became more about the city of London and its abandoned people. Homeless is commonplace in London, however, this should not be an excuse for choosing to ignore the issue. This is especially the case currently, with the city being full of unpredictability. Brexit is detrimental to the young people who live in this city and the cutting of public funds also makes the lives of these marginalised people harder. For this project, the aim is to hear their voice, to document their lives and let them speak about their story. I wish that this project could change their current life situation, however, I personally doubt that photography could change their lives. In addition, as I got deeper into the project, I realised that I would not be able to conclude the reasons behind a person being homeless or how these people could better their current situation. They are complicated human beings just like you and me. I discovered that the lives of the homeless have so much in common with our lives. Looked at in another light, these people are also the ones who have successfully escaped from the cage of modern society. They are the refugees of this city, as well as the ones who truly have their freedom, even though the cost of this freedom is sometimes enormous.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Yang Xingkun
I am a student currently pursuing my master’s degree in visual anthropology at Goldsmiths University. Graduated from BA(Hons) in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography at the London College of Communication (UAL).
Having majored in photography for both my foundation and Bachler degrees (2014-2018) and also worked as a freelance photographer, holding a photography exhibition together with the London Sinfonietta.
For me, doing photography is not only about photography itself, but also my curiosity about what role photography plays as a medium in our society. I wish to discover the photographer’s social identity as a professionally trained observer and an anthropologist. I started doing photography since the second year of high school and after that keep learning photography as my major, observing this world using both my cameras and my own eyes.