On Tour

 

Finally done showing at the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Melbourne, the show goes on tour for the next 2 years over 2012 & 2013 around Australia. I will update the schedule soon as I find out about it myself! Thanks to all the people that came out to see it and continue to show support for the work. It is an honour to share the small stories.

 

MERRY MERRY

This is how we do down under, holiday styles. Merry everything, live large & laugh lots, my friends!!!

xY

 

You think you’re safe here

If I were content, I would not move. If I were reconciled, I would not have come back.

Instead, I find the lies offensive, baiting. I cannot believe them, the ones you make to yourself and to the people around you. I cannot shield myself with the same veil that you drag across your eyes as you shuttle your toddlers back and forth, making cheery small talk with people you would never let into your home.

How do you ignore the rotten core? The fakery, the leers, the forgetting pills and powders, the rape, the murder? How did you become a part of it?

All hidden away behind the waterfront property, the candy coloured town. What a great place to raise your kids – the collective moan.

I came back to find the place that formed me. I came back to touch the artifice again, the warm, crushing boredom, mindless wandering and suppressed violence in a place that looks right but feels so wrong. This place brought me to my knees and kept smiling as she did it, twisting, asphyxiating. My demons live here, camouflaged within the pastel landscapes. And when I return, I am the mad one. I am the one who points at nothing, shies away from imaginary things and speaks of a world that apparently died in our younger years. The white-veneered, red-gummed mouths tell me that I over-react, I should let go, I speak of a wound-like corruption where there is none.

I smile a mad smile and think I know better.

(You think you’re safe here)

Pale sun

My sister, she photographs too. She roams and laughs with her young Italian lover and their friends by an Australian shore. Clicks on no more than a whim. Purity and pale sun in March.

© Ling Ang

© Ling Ang

© Ling Ang

© Ling Ang

© Ling Ang

 

 

Moon on a stick

I got on another plane. Pressed up against the oval window, watching the aerial landscape of Australia’s vast emptiness glide by. Day turns to night and the light fades to the dark shades of a cobalt pencil. We land and I am whisked through the night in a black S class Mercedes, cameras at my feet (Apple smart device in hand), windows aglow in skyscraping homes, the nameless eyes of people I don’t know, lights of a city that outshine the stars (the moon on a stick).

Melbourne – Hong Kong | February, 2011

Because all I want is the moon upon a stick
Just to see what it is
Just to see what gives
Take the lotus flowers into my room
Slowly we unfurl
As lotus flowers
All I want is the moon upon a stick
Dance around a pit
The darkness is beneath

~ from “Lotus Flower” by Radiohead

 

Playground love

I’m a high school lover, and you’re my favourite flavour
Love is all, all my soul
You’re my playground love

Yet my hands are shaking
I feel my body reeling, time’s no matter, I’m on fire
On the playground, love.

You’re the piece of gold that flashes on my soul.
Extra time, on the ground.
You’re my playground love.

Anytime, anywhere,
You’re my playground love.

~ Air

Be generous with your love | Australia | Summer | 2011

Summer’s Score

by Summer’s score, I
levelled the ground with a roar
beat upon my chest and tore
rapaciously across the feathered floor
of field, forest, marshland, moor

With a burst and a battle cry, I’m plunging in the sea, flinging my meagre self through the foam, sweeping currents dragging at my feet. I’m hunting down spider webs through the woods, backlit and silver, crowned by her eight legged queen, casting fishing nets by the river with my dad and his deep, brown hands gently untangling and setting free the ones unfit for food, sprinting after butterflies in their erratic flight to find the perfect cradle in the perfect bloom.

A child of salt water and the summer, where I grew wild and barefoot.

Gold Coast | Australia

Ancient light

When I look at the sky am I seeing a ghost of a star and if so shall I mourn it and if not does the passing of a great thing become greater if it leaves light trails streaking through the universe for millions of years after its death?

Looking up.
Venus Bay | Australia

How it ends

My pieces of 2010.

Some video, some stop-motion, some slideshow, some highs, some lows, some revelations:

ICP and beyond – My year at the International Centre of Photography, New  York

Pre-Games – When friends come over for the party before the party

In the early AM – Heading downtown in a cab, late one night/early one morning with Ling

Sneak peek – A cracked window on how I like to “work”

Escape to Fort Myers – Brief respite from New York in Florida

Insomnia – No sleep in April

Loss – I lost someone

Getting personal – Understanding what it means to be separate

From England to Australia – Journeying away on wobbly post-ICP legs

x Ying + Ling

 

Nocturne

Melbourne | Australia