Hu Yun: Archiving the Lost Information

Hu Yun: Archiving the Lost Information

Written by Huirong Ye

Hu Yun's artistic practice is typically rooted in the individual's self-placement within the flow of history. By employing research methodologies such as fieldwork, travel, oral history, and archival studies, he compiles and reimagines historical facts and primary sources. This approach allows him to engage more extensively in the broader contexts of colonialism and cross-cultural interactions. Continuously, he endeavors to disrupt and destabilize cultural narratives constructed with hegemonic terminologies, enabling them to flow anew.

The exhibition “The Archival Impulse: An Exercise in Counter-Narrative and Counter-Memory" displays works from three different series by the artist across various periods. Commencing in 2014, the piece Untitled (from the narrative of a five years expedition) (2014) marks the beginning of Hu Yun’s practice of using books as "raw materials." The memoirs by John Gabriel Stedman, an English/Dutch soldier and author, titled Narrative of a Five Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796), are academically recognized as the inception of a long-standing literary tradition of "humanitarian narratives." It includes detailed accounts of Suriname’s landscape, flora and fauna, military operations, and the brutal tortures and abuses inflicted on the local enslaved Africans. In alignment with Stedman's narrative, Romantic poet William Blake was commissioned to create illustrations for the book, which subsequently became an important visual template for abolitionist advocacy.

Hu Yun was deeply drawn to the dualism of beauty and violence pervasive in Stedman’s text and Blake’s imagery, despite the clear dichotomy between colonizer/white and resister/black slave identities, which share entwined emotions and complex entanglements. Here, the artist reminds us that the handling of archival materials inevitably entails personalized sentiments and continually revised historical perspectives. Much like Blake’s translations of Stedman’s text into images carried his own abolitionist stance and the visual assertions of a Gothic horror aesthetic, Hu Yun’s re-editing of Blake also mixes a cautious approach to historical complexity. In his creative process, Hu Yun extracts specific elements from the original illustrations, such as the hands of the colonizers/slaves, outlines of figures/animals, and lines of plants, leaving ample blank spaces on paper that compel viewers to speculate about the true scenarios behind the images. Thus, he creates a version of history that requires articulation based on personal experience to be understood.

Hu Yun, Palm 06 (Untitled), 2018, ink on tracing paper, 110 x 150 x 6.5 cm

The paper-based artwork Palm 06 (Untitled) (2018) suspended in the center of the exhibition hall is part of Hu Yun’s recent "Palm" series. A working method combining tropical travel and textual research has gradually brought about a conscious obsession with this plant for Hu Yun, who continuously uses the palm tree as a theme in his creations, infusing the repeated depictions with deeper semiotic reflections. Palms, symbolizing exotic allure, frequently appear in museum collections, black and white photographs, and book illustrations; as botanical spoils of imperial conquests, they are cultivated in artificially climate-controlled greenhouses for display. This tropical plant, intertwined with connotations of "vacation" and "leisure," is widely propagated and cultivated against the backdrop of globalization. Consequently, palm trees are now a common sight in resorts and upscale residential areas around the world.

The varied forms of palm trees specify the precise locations visited by the artist during his field research. The palm depicted in Palm No.6 (Untitled) originates from the Palm House in London's Kew Gardens, a glass and iron structure built in the 1840s. Its design was initially intended to house exotic palm species collected and introduced to Europe during the early Victorian era. Today, many of these plants are endangered in the wild, with some even extinct. Other plants, such as the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis), African oil palm (Elaeis guineensis), and cocoa tree (Theobroma cacao), valued for their production of fruits, wood, spices, and medicinal properties, continue to thrive under the artificially created tropical conditions of the Palm House. The artwork is positioned slightly above eye level and angled, recreating the humid, dim, and stifling atmosphere of the Palm House.

Hu Yun, The Unknown Clouds, 2022, carved rice grain, dimensions variable

The commissioned installation piece The Unknown Clouds for this exhibition highlights the artist’s recent research into the early Chinese laborers in the Victorian goldfields during his residency in Australia. While examining the surname registry at the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo, Hu Yun discovered a list of Chinese laborers arranged alphabetically. Similar registries are prevalent worldwide at sites where Chinese laborers worked, typically drafted by Caucasians for the purposes of managing and regulating labor deployment. Most names on the list were stripped of surnames and mainly used diminutives from the Siyi dialect, such as "Ah Can," "Ah King," etc. Some names are puzzling, with no clear Chinese origin, attempted translations into English, or adoption of European names like “Abboo Mason.” This registry reveals the linguistic and racial hurdles faced by the Chinese laborers in the goldfields, showing how names, as the smallest unit of an individual’s sovereignty, display the continual marginalization and alienation of non-Western subjects under hegemonic narratives. The actual individuals and their lives referenced by these names have disappeared from historical narratives, beyond imagination. Hu Yun invited the Hangzhou-based micro-carver Li Hao to engrave each name on a grain of rice. Here, rice—a basic survival necessity for the displaced Chinese laborers—serves as the medium for this missing archive.