20/20 meet the artists: Yuen Fong Ling

"I make socially engaged artworks to explore the permitted and omitted people, places and objects and to reveal how past stories and histories relate to us now. I use my own lived experience as a starting point to make biographical connections to other people's lives - searching archives, galleries, museums and heritage sites to find the spirit of the body, the human presence, in amongst the artworks and artefacts.

From a migrant Chinese family living in the UK, my mother taught me the importance of clothing and good presentation in public - whilst privately, we struggled to survive and make ends meet. My interest in the meaning of dress codes and how we socialise ourselves through clothing extended to my training as a fashion and textile student. I explored what shaped my Asian sensibility, when dislocated from its place of origin, whilst questioning my own Britishness, as seen through migration stories and colonial histories.

The 20/20 commission will extend my investigation "Towards Memorial" (2016-ongoing) into the origins of a sandal, once handmade by socialist and gay rights activist Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) and his long-term partner George Merrill, who lived openly in Millthorpe, Derbyshire. Carpenter greatly influenced the politics of Sheffield, the UK and the world during his years of activism. The South Asian origin of sandals aligned Carpenter's philosophical and spiritual evolution. My artworks explore where those interests and connections may have informed people, places, and life now."

"The research will map the semiotic characteristics and meanings of an iconic photograph taken of Edward Carpenter and question the colonial histories that frame this body. As a starting point, it will begin to unpack the codes of dress, self-styling, socially and politically to encourage conversations about gender, sexuality, race and class, and how these power dynamics play out today.

I want to encourage how bodies of colour socialise and activate the archive, disrupt conventional narratives and go beyond the label text. I will show these spaces in flux, and in constant reappraisal. I also want to ask the difficult questions about the narratives and stories we present as history to explore the fragments and consider the gaps, the silences,

and the unseen. Ultimately, as an artist, I want to show you what I see, and in doing so, be seen. I want to feel this history is my history, as well as our history."