[黄] Yellow
Silk Screen Print // Nylon // Vinyl // Pigment // Additives
3D Rendering In Collaboration with Jessica Kim
***SUGGESTED MUSIC THAT INSPIRED THIS PIECE: “YELLOW” BY KATHERINE HO (ORIGINAL TRACK BY COLDPLAY)***
Images of past American propaganda depicting Asians.
Important reading from the research process:
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/09/27/647989652/if-we-called-ourselves-yellow
The color yellow has been fraught with many historical connotations in American history, dealing with Asian Americans. The images depicting the “Yellow Peril” bored the sickly tone describing “the monsters of the East.” Carl Linnaeus, known as the father of taxonomy, declared that Asians were luridus, pale yellow. In his publications, Linnaeus used it to describe toxic and unhealthy plants.
Growing up, I was labeled yellow. That association was at first confusion, then, acceptance and followed by distaste. Although I could not understand why I was described: yellow, I quickly learned that it was way of differentiating and separating. And because of that, for the longest time, I could not wear yellow; I didn’t want to accentuate the yellowness of my skin.
Process Photos and Sources of Inspiration. Exploring different materials and making processes to convey messages on skin and skin color. After a series of explorations and trials with pigments and fabrics, vinyl stood out to be the material that offered that glow.
In the recent years, as I have slowly accepted my skin color, simultaneously, there has been a rise of Asian American presence (especially that of Chinese American representation) in American pop culture. With the global rise of Subtle Asian Traits, a Facebook group of almost 2 million members, and movies such as Crazy Rich Asians, and The Farewell, the stories I could relate to growing up were being told. Jon Chu, director of Crazy Rich Asian, included a Mandarin version of Coldplay’s “Yellow” in a pivotal scene of the movie to attach something beautiful to the color yellow. I realized how could a color describing the brightness and the warmth of the sun become something so fearful in my eyes.
Keeping in mind the design brief of creating interior fabrics, I looked towards skin and my relation to skin color as the main source of inspiration. Thinking about private or public spaces, I chose the high school lunchroom as the framework for my fabrics. The lunchroom table is a nostalgic setting that is a private space people carve out in a public area. In the mundane American lunchroom, self segregation happens as people tend to form groups from shared cultures and interests. The lunchroom table, thus, becomes a private space to share and relate personal stories. Among the rows and rows of tables where stories are passed and told, I wanted to create a fabric that demands its presence, a metaphor of Chinese Americans in America, while creating a private and safe space for those who enter.
Left: One Repeat Right: Repeated Repeat
Left: Nylon and Puff Additive: Texture and material contrast to the vinyl. Evokes the sickly yellow and growth concept of the “yellow peril.”
Right: Vinyl and Pigment: Vibrancy of the yellow shown through the material. The material quality and print evokes of light and demands the
audience’s attention.
Original fabrics printed for this project. The Left: Nylon with puff additive and yellow pigment (8ft x 5ft). Right: Vinyl with special adhesive base and pigments (8ft x 4 ft)