HE Yan (she/her)
email: heyanfilms@gmail.com
instagram ︎︎︎
vimeo ︎︎︎
email: heyanfilms@gmail.com
instagram ︎︎︎
vimeo ︎︎︎
In a conversation between artists Lizzy and Sean in Showing Up (2022), directed by American filmmaker Kelly Reichardt, Sean expressed that ‘art is the earth talking. Poetry is the voice of the earth. So, it is all earth work. These are mouths. Listen. You have to listen to what isn’t being said. You hear that?’ I keep returning to these words as they remind me that listening is not simply about hearing a sound. What does it mean to listen to what is not being said? What happens when we attend to forms of agency that do not easily conform to our customary sensory, linguistic, or cognitive experience?
I am interested in staying with things and moments that we might not grasp immediately, and I wonder what forms of presence escape the ways that we have been taught to see, hear, name, perceive, and understand the world. It feels like the longer I stay with them, the more I become aware of the limit of my perception, and how deeply it is shaped by being human. Listening, for me, is a practice of attentive encounters to connect with the acoustic environment and initiate relationships among different sounds in a field of possibilities. I listen to the environment, as well as the resonance in my body.
My artistic practice initially developed from analog photography and experimental filmmaking. These visual practices are often made from intuitive encounters with memories, emotions, philosophies, impermanency, and the passage of time and space. I often choose non-linear narratives to convey and share what I feel and care about. I also started to engage with alternative photographic processes, such as cameraless experimentation, cyanotype, and chlorophyll process.
Please forgive me for not providing descriptions for my film/photograph projects, as I believe that either still or moving image hold the power to speak through their own visual language, and I hope that you will immerse yourself in the process of ‘listening’ without me telling you what you should notice and feel. If you are curious about what was in my heart in making a specific film or photograph project, or willing to share your lovely feelings and thoughts on any piece of my works, please please send me an email. I would always be happy to have a conversation : )
Take care!
I am interested in staying with things and moments that we might not grasp immediately, and I wonder what forms of presence escape the ways that we have been taught to see, hear, name, perceive, and understand the world. It feels like the longer I stay with them, the more I become aware of the limit of my perception, and how deeply it is shaped by being human. Listening, for me, is a practice of attentive encounters to connect with the acoustic environment and initiate relationships among different sounds in a field of possibilities. I listen to the environment, as well as the resonance in my body.
My artistic practice initially developed from analog photography and experimental filmmaking. These visual practices are often made from intuitive encounters with memories, emotions, philosophies, impermanency, and the passage of time and space. I often choose non-linear narratives to convey and share what I feel and care about. I also started to engage with alternative photographic processes, such as cameraless experimentation, cyanotype, and chlorophyll process.
Please forgive me for not providing descriptions for my film/photograph projects, as I believe that either still or moving image hold the power to speak through their own visual language, and I hope that you will immerse yourself in the process of ‘listening’ without me telling you what you should notice and feel. If you are curious about what was in my heart in making a specific film or photograph project, or willing to share your lovely feelings and thoughts on any piece of my works, please please send me an email. I would always be happy to have a conversation : )
Take care!