Journey of a Yellow Man

I started a series of performances entitled, Journey of a Yellow Man in London, April 1992 putting yellow pigment on my yellow skin as an emphasis on my ethnicity. Since then the Yellow Man has appeared at various times, wandering into different environments, traversing different cities in different countries, testing shifting contexts, and through these journeys identity is being put together and de-constructed.  

Journey of a Yellow Man, Performance at
City of London Polytechnic, April 1992

One of the anxieties I faced of being a Chinese Singaporean in London was that I was often being mistaken for s.b. from mainland China. Even mainland Chinese would usually expect me to be well versed in Mandarin language and knowledge of Chinese culture. Although I am familiar with the language and culture still they would frown on my lesser capacity and competence. At the same time, being first time away for a longer period, there was a greater sensitivity of prevalent racism when living in a predominantly white society.  

Journey of a Yellow Man No. 2: the fire and the sun
at International Sculpture Symposium
Gulbarga, Karnataka, India, December 1992

To the West, the otheris often seen not only as exotic, erotic or primitive but also inferior and subject to colonization. The Swedish scientist and botanist, Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) is said to be the father of taxonomy, the scientific classifications of animals and plants now used in biological sciences. He even made some differentiations among the human race in four categories. These included Native Americans (Homo sapiens americanus) seen as red, ill-tempered and subjugated. The European category (Homo sapiens europeaeus) was white, serious and strong. The Asiatic (Homo sapiens asiaticus) is described as yellow, melancholy, and greedy lastly the African (Homo sapiens africanus) was depicted as black, impassive and lazy. These categories are explicitly racist stereotypical perceptions, which even today help scientists to categorize and interpret their observations. #1 

Journey of a Yellow Man No.3: DESIRE
solo exhibition, installation, performance
The Substation, Singapore, 21-25 July 1993

These contexts along with earlier explorations on identity, helped to initiate my series of Journey of a Yellow Man. Painting the body yellow alluded to various issues on my ethnicity and was also like putting on a full-body mask. When working at the Artists Village and Tang Da Wu, we talked about putting the Chinese opera white powder on the face as a mask to signify embodying another persona in performance. #2 

Journey of a Yellow Man No.3: DESIRE
solo exhibition, installation, performance
The Substation, Singapore 21-25 July 1993

The mask also helps to overcome our shyness of revealing ourselves as well as anxieties of stage fright when stepping in front of an audience. Etymologically, mask originated from the Italian masca, which describes an evil, hideous character. The Latin form of persona also implied a mask as in a role or a person. #3

The yellow man persona was an over the top mask which wishes to address various issues as well as a visually strong image that captivates the audience.  

Journey of a Yellow Man No.5: Index to Freedom,
at 4th Asian Art Show, Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan
September + October 1994

Each performance in the series of Journey of Yellow Man presents a different format and has a different sub-theme. Some are short performances of thirty minutes whereas others may involve an installation, which incorporates long durational performances. The performances have been conceived based on site-specificity and also responding to the nature of the event concerned. There is also a relationship to the time of enactment which influences the work manifested with regard to my own personal physical, mental, emotional and psychological state. I had set out to offer a narrative discourse based on actions that create communicative images and to situate myself in a local as well as international community. They are based on local contexts of an individual’s struggle within the cultural location of Singapore but with view to universal socio-political themes. 

#1 Although my work is not directly related to issues of racism I found it useful to understand the perceptions of identity in relationship to race. For issues of classification see Smedley, Audrey: Science and the Idea of Race, in, Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth, edited by Jefferson M. Fish (London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, 2002): pg. 145-155. For identity formation see: Balibar, Etienne & Wallerstein, Immanuel: Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Verso, 1991. 

#2 The Artists Village is an alternative art collective in Singapore, which I have been affiliated with since 1989. Tang Da Wu was considered its founder and spearheaded its initial direction.

#3 Erich Herold, The World of Masks, London, Hamlyn, 1992. 

text by Lee Wen, Singapore 2009
 

FEATURED THEME ON CITY SHARING

MORE CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE FOLLOWING