M HKA Ensembles

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Collection: Courtesy the artist.

Yang’s interest in the relations and parallels of different biographies expands into textual form. Her ongoing series A Chronology of Conflated Dispersions considers the biographies of key cultural figures who also reflected on the politics of their time, and placed in the broader context of history. Two chronologies are presented here. A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion – Duras and Yun intertwines the parallel biographies of the French writer Marguerite Duras (1914-96) and the Korean composer Isang Yun (1917-95). This merged chronology of figures who extracted their key experiences at home but also in other territories – Duras lived in French-Indochina as a child and Yun lived in Germany in the latter part of his life – is embedded within the legacy of imperialism, the Cold War and other pivotal social, cultural and political events.
 

A second chronology, A Chronology of Conflated Dispersion – Duras and Orwell, intertwines the biography of Duras with that of British writer George Orwell, who was similarly experienced the colonised Asia from the viewpoint of the coloniser – in his case in India where he was born, with subsequent experiences in Burma. Yang’s merged chronologies invites us to look at the lives of these influential figures, to see how both personal experiences and socio-political affect played a role in forming radical alternative worldviews. Visitors are invited to take a copy of these chronologies.