Thursday 1 July 19:00 via Zoom
Available to view in the Members Area
Dr. Yan Wang Preston grew up in Henan Province, China, moving to Shanghai at the age of 18 to study medicine. In 2005 she moved to the U.K. after marrying a fellow mountaineer and saw the move as an opportunity to change her career. She had always had a childhood interest in photography and studied for an MA in Photography at Bradford College and went on to a practice-based PhD in Photography at the University of Plymouth.
Preston’s practice reflects a long-term interest in the contested definitions, myths, politics and ideologies of nature in contemporary societies. Her work is primarily based in photography, especially landscape photography. With this foundation, she is also interested in process-based art as both practice and research, which can take different forms such as performances, conceptual photography, videos, books and social/digital sculptures. Her major projects include: ‘Mother River’ and ‘Forest’. For the former, she photographed the entire 6,211km Yangtze River in China at precise 100km intervals. For the latter, she investigated the politics of urban re-naturing by photographing transplanted old trees and ecology recovery in new Chinese cities. These two monographs ‘Forest’ and ‘Mother River’ were both published by Hatje Cantz in 2018.
Preston’s work has won major international awards such as the First Prize in Professional Landscape, Sony World Photography Awards (2019) and the Hundred Heroines from the Royal Photographic Society (2018). Her solo exhibitions have been presented at prestigious venues such as the 56th Venice Biennale, Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, Wuhan Art Museum, Gallery of Photography Ireland and Impressions Gallery in Bradford, UK. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and newspapers, such as The Guardian, Irish Times, European Photography, Chinese Photography, CCTV and British Journal of Photography.
While continuing to work as an independent artist, Preston also lectures at the University of Huddersfield.
www.yanwangpreston.com
Instagram: @yanwangpreston