Meet You Liang

We had the good fortune of connecting with You Liang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi You Liang, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I grew up in a conservative town in central China, in a rural area near Wuhan. Because my father became a migrant worker in Southeast Asia, I also wandered around the world growing up. One year after I entered a university in Scotland, the epidemic broke out in Wuhan, it was also the year I came out to my family and they were furious and rejected me. Myself the UK and my family in Wuhan drifted to different places in the torrent of the times. After graduating from university, I moved to London alone with the money I saved, found a room in an apartment, became roommates with two strangers who are now my close friends, and gradually built my life. It can be said that every step in my life is a risky move with an unpredictable future. I enjoy the feeling of challenge.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I mostly works with photography, installation and publications are my preferred mediums to approach art.  I attempted to touch and tell the journeys of migration and nomadism, the black hole of death, as well as mothers and childhood songs. My current practice investigates female hood as a lesbian growing up in Asia under the One Child Policy, and the impact my queer identity had on not only myself but also the women in my family.

My overall experience of trying to be a full time artist is impossible for some people including myself, and that is OK. I went to art school and found out that it was a bubble, and I bursted the bubble, now I have a day job to pay my rent, along side I do my own projects, submit to open calls and hope to be seen on bigger platforms. I find out that artists nowadays have a better chance to survive together as a collective than individual, collectives bring many things together, apart from shared opportunities and critiques, it provides a safe net and a support system. Pearl Slug a safe net to myself, and hopefully to many other artists that we work closely with. Last year we were shockingly inspired by The KL Art Book Fair in Malaysia and how they work tightly with activists. This year we managed to bringing more community based projects. Through out this working process, we managed to provide some job opportunities to people around us as well as donation to NGO from the Global South

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
My favorite area in London is Angel, there are many dessert places that I would take my friends to, lots of charity shops as well, I often shrift fabrics there. I would take them to Primrose Hill for the sunset, Chinatown for snacks, Bermonsey for coffee and exhibitions. South bank always have the best events as well. But to be honest, I only recently moved to London and was busy with work, I haven’t had time to explore the city, hopefully I can get to know London better this summer.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Shout out to Raging Magazine that was a small project and has grown into a bigger and more consistent programme with Pearl Slug Studio that I co-funded with my friends: Shaoshuang Guan, Vanilla Chi and Maoji, and every person who helped the growth of this magazine. It is a project that keeps me alive and motivated, and hopefully brings the bridge of communication and motivation to our audiences as well as our featured artists.

Website: https://www.youliangart.com

Instagram: y0u.1iang

Image Credits
photo by You Liang