The Salt Yard showcases a joint photography exhibition Definitely Maybe displaying Paul Yeung’s The Good Old days in 1989 and Zheng Yaohau's On Their Sites. Under the impact of new media and social media platform, the role of photography as a record of memory and personal experience that it plays since its invention has evolved. Such a role is also questioned by the works of the two photographers in this exhibition. When Yeung examined his family album taken in 1989, he could not believe the child in these pictures was himself. He then altered these pictures, dragging audience and himself into a familiar and yet strange paradoxical situation. It goes without saying the year that these pictures taken posed an implication as well. Inspired by On This Site by Joel Sternfeld, Zheng pointed his camera at ordinary street corners, public spaces as a grim observer in On Their Sites. But then all these pictures were filled with personal memories of ordinary people. Challenging cliches that photography is a platform for memory storage or a machine generating nostalgia, the two photographers revealed the question of credibility derived from photography.
About the artists:
Born in 1978 in Hong Kong, graduated from MA in Image and Communication (Photography) at Goldsmiths College, University of London in 2011. Yeung worked at different publications and agency such as Reuters as photojournalist for 10 years after graduated from BA in Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2000. In 2013, he was awarded 2nd prize of the award for street photography from the inaugural Invisible Photographer Asia Awards. Yeung had also received numerous awards presented by The Newspaper Society of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Press Photographers Association and was selected as one of the Fourteen “Hong Kong New Generation Photographers” at the Hong Kong Photography Festival 2010. In 2011, he participated in “Count to 12”, a part of “The Road to 2012” project commissioned by and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Yeung currently lives and works in Hong Kong.
Zheng Yaohua was born in Shanghai, China in 1962. He studied Chinese language and literature at Shanghai Normal University where he received his Bachelor's degree in 1985. He has been a video editor, motion graphic designer and a writer for more than a decade before starting to treat photography as a serious tool for his art creation. Zheng currently lives and works in New York City, U.S., where he has to be merely an on-my-way-to/from-office photographer, but as serious as he has been. After spending a year in New York, 2004, four photographs from Zheng's Under Manhattan Bridge were selected to be included in a publication 28mm: OFFLINE (Netherlands). In 2006, he was awarded first place in QMA Seven Train Photo Contest hosted by the Queens Museum of Art (New York City). His debut photo book Sleepwalk was published in 2010. Zheng is an awardee of 2011 QCAF award, funded by the NYDCLA Greater New York Arts Development Fund, for his important project On Their Sites started in early 2007. The work was sparked by his contemplation of mundane things and average individuals.
-The Salt Yard
Image: © Zheng Yaohua
Courtesy of the artist and The Salt Yard
