Yuumei - Art for Activism

Black, Black Heart

Man, speaking about art, I'd like to talk about and artist who's so much more talented than me! I would just like to share some work from one of my favourite artists Wenqing Yan, or as she's known on the internet, Yuumei.

She is a young Chinese-American artist who does all sorts of fantasy art. But one can argue that she is the most famous for pictures and comics that focus on social issues in order to spread awareness.

Guilty

In her descriptions of her pieces, she posts the statistics and facts that inspired the piece, or a related bit of poetry, or tips for living in ways that are better for the envrionment. I just find her imagery so evocative, and her colour choices are so striking!


Countdown's too big for blogger, so I'll link it here.

I'd also really like to bring to attention her flash comic: Knite. 

Knite: Bringer of Stars

It's a flash comic that consists of several full page illustrations with some lines of text, although she's been posting more traditional long pages with one panel after another lately. Inspired by a trip she underwent to China and noticing that at night, the elderly would fly kites with lights attached to them at night, and that they looked like they were trailing stars behind them.

Tall People only plz

The main character is a teenage delinquent who wants to bring hope to his fellow citizens by flying kites with lights on their tails to simulate the stars, since their smog-filled skies block the stars from view. Throughout the comic, he comes into conflict with other characters and their views on what it would have to take to make things better for the people. It's still being worked on, so no definite ending yet.

Knite-True Price

Some find her depiction of China a little extreme...and I do too, a bit. In Knite, the nation really seems like some industrial dystopia, which is pretty sensationalized. But the issues she presents do warrant merit such as the One Child Policy, inequality considering the distribution of education and pollution.

Anyway, the course has a big environmentalist theme and talking about it made me think of her. Also, in seminar today I noticed a quote in an issue of Adbusters they were handing out about how humanity might have already dealt the fatal blow to the environment and the fight is now more for our present than our future. Humanity is a flexible race and probably has the ability to live through the changes, but the fact that we've gotten this far all due to our greed is...pretty astonishing. In a bad way.