Repost: 5/1 Migratory Paths, From Photographic Representation to Materiality

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Friday, May 1
2-3:30 PM
AOK Library Gallery

Taking migration as a central premise, artist Wei Leng Tay will share about modes of narrative-making in her art. From her beginnings in journalism to her current practice, she will speak about shifting ideas and uses of representation and materiality in relation to the photographic medium. She will discuss ways migration moves through some of her works, from topic to medium to form. The Other Shore, a photographic and interview-based audio work, tells a story of a new generation of mainland Chinese migrants in Hong Kong. you think it over slowly, slowly choose…, considers statelessness through the materiality of the photograph. Works in Untitled (family slides 60s-70s) question how the objecthood of photographs shape the ways personal and collective memory converge, and how photographs can constitute ideas of history. Through these examples, Tay will surface the complex relationships between history, embodiment, and representation entangled with the photographic image. 

Bio

Based in Singapore, artist Wei Leng Tay works across photography, video, and installation and explores constructions of identity, memory, and history through her practice. Her works draw on long-term engagements with individuals, families, and communities, and include research into photographic archives, interviews, and collaborative processes. Central to her practice is a sustained inquiry into the medium of photography through its materiality, modes of circulation, and communicative possibilities. By working at the intersection of the intimate and the structural, Tay unpacks the complexities of belonging, displacement, and the politics of representation, bringing attention to what it means to be human within today's shifting political and cultural contexts.

Originally trained in biology at McGill University, Tay's early professional experience was in photojournalism, working as a photo editor and photographer for news organisations such as TIME Magazine's Asia edition in Hong Kong. This background continues to inform her inquiry into the instrumentalization of photography and the politics of image-making. Tay later completed her MFA at Bard College and has since developed a practice that bridges research, pedagogy, and collaboration. She was most recently a lecturer of art practice at Yale-NUS College and remains invested in teaching as a form of knowledge exchange and artistic inquiry.

This artist talk is supported by the Department of Visual Arts and CIRCA, with additional support from the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery, the Asian Studies Program, the Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture (CADVC), and the Global Asias Initiative.