Identity and the American Landscape: The Photography of Wing Young Huie
For the past 35 years, Minnesota photographer Wing Young Huie has used photography to engage communities in dialogue on identity and otherness. Much of his work stems from the ethnocentric complexities of growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, the only one in his family not born in Guangdong, China. These hyphenated identities shift between a culture where Huie feels somewhat less than white and, among his Chinese relatives, where he feels more “American” than Chinese.
While Huie’s work has primarily investigated these tensions of the exotic/familiar in his home state of Minnesota, he has also worked extensively with communities throughout the United States to create a collective portrait of the American acculturation experience.
In November 2010, Arts Midwest began touring Huie’s exhibition Identity and the American Landscape: The Photography of Wing Young Huie, to cities across China. The goals of this 60-image exhibition are to present the changing cultural landscape of Minnesota and the United States, and the possibilities and positive everyday realities of American diversity.
In addition to photographs that document experiences of social disconnection and “otherness,” this exhibition includes works from Huie’s “chalkboard” process. Used primarily in his University Avenue Project, these works include photographs of individuals holding chalkboards on which revealing statements on identity, self-perception, and race are hand-written.
Over the course of this touring exhibition, Identity and the American Landscape will tour to galleries in Beijing and the Xi’an, Shenyang, and Wuhan provinces.
Identity and the American Landscape: The Photography of Wing Young Huie is supported by the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities and The Embassy of the United States in Beijing.
