Untitled Landscape is a critique of the prevalence of overproduction and over consumption. Responding to the crisis of sustainability and capturing documentation of Manila’s urban ecology, imperiled and in stasis.
Rather than seeking pathos in degradation it seeks redemption and deliverance in seeing and cultivating awareness.
Untitled Landscape is a continuous attempt in mapping the urban and archiving them as clues of the present. Treading on matters of displacement, resembling scars and residual textures of time, folds, dents and creases are captured and felt through the frame. A tug towards a consciousness of the human condition, mired with consumerism and degradation. The necessities and wants of humanity morph the very space they stand on.
This confrontation with such unapologetic simplicity is seen tangled with numerous and diverse chronicles of the metro that anchors to a facet that is usually disregarded. Spoils and decline are boxed in a vibrant palette and overlooked narratives are made visible.
They are not mere artifacts, simply rolled and stored into history. Dis-order is redefined not in the sense of chaos but in shifting and repositioning. This brings forth a terrain that is recognizable yet indistinct, straightforward but abstract.
Navigating through the contemporary, a back and forth appropriation of these peripheries re-align the landscape of the everyday where multiplicity of interpretations and constancy of flux are their paradigm.
About the Artist
MM Yu has worked between photography and painting since obtaining her degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines in 2001. Her works tackle the nuances achieved between composition and color as they occupy the frame. Primarily drawn to street photography and documenting the everyday, her photographs evoke the ever-changing cultural texture and topology of Manila and archiving not only the economy but also the ecology of life in the myriad forms it takes in the city.
The hybrid and density of MM Yu’s subjects remind us of how objects and signs are not necessarily self-contained but take part in larger systems of interaction. Through her ongoing interest in deciphering the unseen landscape of ordinary things, they force us to rethink what our minds already know and rediscover what our eyes have already seen.
IN OTHER IMAGE, WHEN WORDS FAIL
International Portfolio Showcase
National Library Plaza
05 Oct—30 Oct
Free admission
