In 1997 Yee I-Lann sent 12 faxes and in nine days organised an illegal event at the Pudu prison, where she gathered seventy artists to perform and exhibit to a crowd of 2,700 people. This was instigated by news that Pudu prison would be demolished at the end of the month. She thought the prison’s history and what it represented, as a monument, made it too important to be replaced by another commercial centre, and wanted to create an event to commemorate it.
But then she did have a family history of putting political questions into practice. Her mother left New Zealand by ship for the first time in the early sixties to go and live in a commune in china because she wanted to see for herself what Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution was about. Fortunately for I-Lann she went back to New Zealand where she met and married a Malaysian, a Sabahan scholar with Sino-Kadazan ancestors, and I-Lann was born and brought up in Kota Kinabalu.
The Pudu event might make I-Lann look like a rebel, but in an interview with kakiseni.com she explains how communicating ideas is what is important to her, although often in a provocative and playful way. “There are many walls around us. It’s important for personal growth to push these walls”. She readily admits being influenced by parents themselves larger than life. “My dad is the ultimate devil’s advocate”, she says.
All the work she has exhibited is conceptual: she questions the concept of”pretty”, uncovers hypocrisies or prejudices, questions everything and everyone, and is particularly interested in the notions of pop and street culture, as well as with the notion of art and with the gallery system. “I take the piss all the time”, says I-Lann.
But no matter how much she mocks the establishment, “I believe very much in working with the establishment”, she says. She exhibited at the National Art Gallery, at Valentine Willie Fine Arts, and was one of two Malaysians represented at the international art fair in Madrid in February.
There again she betrays the influence of her father who is a retired civil servant, and her headmistress mother who plays a very active role in the community, from education issues to succeeding against a lobby of dentists & doctors in stopping the fluoridation of water in Sabah for health reasons.
I-Lann combines an unexpected mixture of very healthy and strong critical mind directed to the establishment and everything around her with the desire to play by the rules of the establishment and be recognised by it. “It creates an interesting tension in her work”, comments art critic Laura Fan.
“Play” is the right word in I-Lann’s case as she will explain that she elevates play nearly to a system or a work ethic. “People forget to play. It can be very frivolous, or serious. When you play you forget to follow rules and regulations and you open yourself up.” “You can even play with discipline”, she says, like when preparing an exhibition.
She followed very respectable studies, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts at the University of South Australia and a painting certificate at the Central St Martin School of Arts in London, yet she says she went to art school “because I thought it would be fun”.
Because of its play element, art, she believes, has a therapeutic effect. A lot of pieces she creates for herself rather then to be exhibited, as a release, and she worked for a few months during her stay in England as an art therapist’s assistant with disabled children, where again she tested the power of play as a healing tool.
Her falling into the arts realm may have been accidental, yet she has occupied her space there fully. She has used photo extensively, where it is playing with the image in the dark room that interests her most. Her installation work entitled “Buy me” and presented in Madrid in February was a collection of 84+ handbags made of PVC. They were exploring ideas dealing with the culture of consumption, the consumption of culture, commercialism, commodities, desire, propaganda, as well as the idea of cultural homogeneity.
“She was a little star in Madrid”, reports Beverly Yong, managing director of the Malaysian art gallery Valentine Willie Fine Arts that presented I-Lann in Madrid. “Her work is very fresh and direct. It is a hash of pop and art culture, yet it is very unique. I always thought I-Lann’s work would work everywhere”.
While exhibiting her own work in various private and government galleries and working, she runs a collective called LabDNA with Nani Kahar, an architect friend, to explore and present ideas in a new and experimental way to the urban youth. “I have always liked the idea of mass, and the culture on the street”, admits I-Lann. Indeed, throughout her work (such as her handbags that people can buy and use) she tries to use art and play to reach people in the street and to challenge them just as they challenge her.
LabDNA’s first production was “To catch a cloud”, presented at the National Planetarium to a wide public of adults and kids, involving numerous Malaysian artists and writers, experimenting with 17 slide projectors and surround sound. The story was that of a boy wanting to catch a cloud as a metaphor for people wanting to catch vision 2020. When the boy catches the cloud, he realises what was important was the journey. “Our objective was also to explore the possibilities of what can be done with theatre in terms of venues, technical features”, says I-Lann.
The second labDNA project, Suburbia panics, was an “experimental music night with digital musicians, art installations and experimental video” at the Kapitan’s Club restaurant on Jalan Ampang. “It was such a success”, says I-Lann, “it brought a lot of urban youth who wouldn’t go to art galleries. Also at the time galleries were not interested in showcasing digital works”. Then came “Urban Paranoia”, a rave party on the rooftop of Menara IMC, also incorporating experimental art, and “Blue Skies”, the Pudu event.
Her keenness to reach the masses brought her to film where from commercial ads she engaged on a rising path. She was art director for “Bukak Api”, production designer for “Spinning Gasing” and “Embun”, the first co production between Filem Negara and Finas. She also worked as a props buyer for Twentieth Century Fox’s “Anna and the King” and “Entrapment”, as a set decorator for Hallmark Entertainment’s “The Lost Empire” and as an art director for Fine Line Cinema’s ”The Sleeping Dictionary”.
“At this stage I don’t want to direct. Visual elements are important too, you can do a lot through sets and props”, explaining why she isn’t interested in more high profile functions such as film director.
Actually, she seems nearly averse to having a high profile and appears to want to hide and escape from the public eye. She shies interviews, refuses to have a solo exhibition, and plays herself down. “Once [a work of art] is in the public arena I’m no longer relevant, the source is not important anymore”. She goes on: “I hate the notion of artist. It is self-indulgent’. Is it indeed a rejection of the star system, or also a desire to protect herself from criticism?
A self-admitted sensitive person, how indeed to cope with some of the hostile reactions triggered by her disturbing statements and events? Four years after the Pudu party, one can guess some sadness at not having been always understood. “I was disappointed with the response from people from whom I expected a good response”. She admits: “I had an extremely strong urge to do Pudu. I don’t have the urge [to do another event] at the moment, I need the motivation to do something like that.”
So what is in store for someone with the creativity and the can-do approach of I-Lann? To start with, a two person show at Valentine Willie Fine Arts this summer, an exhibition in Berlin in June, a film project and participation in the Chowkit Fest in May.
Whatever it is, it will be based in Malaysia. “I have reason to be here and I feel I belong here”, she says. Actually, half jokingly, she says she would be interested in going into politics, following her desire to reach out to a wide audience, and following what she says is the tradition on her Sino-Kadazan side of the family.
Whatever it is, one can only hope she will keep the fire to keep challenging everyone about who they are and what they want in fun and effective ways.
First Published: 11.03.2002 on Kakiseni