Yan Wang Preston
London Metropolitan University (Map)
To be re-arranged
LIPs Talk events are being held in partnership with the Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design at London Metropolitan University. They are informal and social, and open to LIP members and non-members alike, so bring your friends and be inspired by new perspectives – whether you’re a photographer or not.
Dr. Yan Wang Preston will present her two award-winning photographic projects, Mother River and Forest. For Mother River (2010-2014), Preston spent four years photographing the entire 6,211-km Yangtze River in China at precise 100-km intervals. Designed to provide an antithesis of the mythic image of Yangtze as China’s Mother River, the project also became a systematic observation of China’s regional changes in geology, geography and urbanisation. For Forest (2010-2017), Preston spent eight years investigating the politics of reforestation and ecology recovery in new Chinese cities. In Chongqing, a mega city with 30 million people, she photographed the adaptation journeys of transplanted old trees. In Haidong, a small and entirely designed ecology model town, Preston documents the other-worldly landscape of ecology recovery with their vivid, yet alarming colours. With a personal voice and sustained journeys of observation in space and time, Preston asks questions on how the city can be a homeland while reflecting on the artist’s role in the international debate towards landscape and the environment.
Dr. Yan Wang Preston is a photographic artist with research interests in the contested states of nature in contemporary societies. She has completed two long-term projects – Mother River and Forest. Her work won many international awards such as the 1st Prize, Syngenta Photography Award and the 1st Prize, Professional Landscape category , 2019 Sony World Photography Awards . Her solo exhibitions are shown at venues including the Side Gallery, Newcastle, Gal-lery of Photography Ireland, the 56th Venice Biennale and Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum.
Preston’s monographs are Forest and Mother River (Berlin: Hatje Cantz, 2018). She received a PhD in Photography at the University of Plymouth in 2018. She lectures at the University of Huddersfield.
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