Clio Yang is one of only six finalists chosen to have works on view in both the UCF Art Gallery and Rollins Museum of Art as part of the Pathways 2024: Carlos Malamud Prize exhibition.
The prize offers a pathway to success for emerging artists in Florida. In addition to having her works on view, as a Pathways finalist Clio receives mentorship from industry professionals.
About the Artist
Clio Yang (she/they) is a filmmaker, video artist and film educator who actively engages her multiple cultural background while negotiating a unique identity that calls into question the very idea of media representation. She takes a generalist approach that includes cinematography, photography, writing, sound, and video editing.
A lesbian woman born and raised in Jinan, China, and the first in her family to attend college in the U.S., she portrays disconnections and displacement, but also love and reconciliation in her queer experience that straddles East Asian and American languages and cultures. She points focus to socio-economic issues faced by marginalized groups in her communities, like those in Florida, and among foreigners and Chinese in the South. Projects she worked on have been screened at Florida Film Festival, Athena Film Festival, Global Peace Film Festival, South East European Film Festival LA, and so on. She established her film production knowledge and skills by working under an industry setting as well as a micro-budget independent setting, across narrative, documentary, and experimental.
Clio graduated magna cum laude from Barnard College of Columbia University with a Film Studies BA. She is currently a film lecturer teaching post-production and screenwriting at University of Central Florida, where she earned her feature film production MFA with documentary “And They Saved My Sorry Ass”.
Works on View at Rollins Museum of Art through September 1
Works on View at UCF Art Gallery through August 30
Artist Statement
I write and make films, video art and installations that capture outsiders’ experiences at the intersection of different identities, languages and cultures through a sensitive lens. My works are self-reflexive and socially engaging, contemplating aspirations and dilemmas propelling my constant migration, which informs my fictional and nonfictional works greatly.
My MFA thesis is a documentary titled “And They Saved My Sorry Ass” about anime lovers who identify as queer, including myself, who explore identities through merchandise collecting and cosplaying. I presented a unique perspective into fan culture and how creative fan activities can help minorities embark on a self-exploring, reconciling journey. I sometimes chose experimental methods to portray the subjects (including my own) inner world. A staged performance sequence is meant to symbolize the social pressure felt when practicing a less-known hobby as a foreigner, and the identity crisis when living between two worlds.
I base my work on rigorous research across cultures, languages, and various fields of study, in addition to my original audiovisual expressions. Topics of interest include LGBTQ+ rights and queer life, civil rights, immigrant experiences, Chinese in the United States, and environmental justice. Through artistic rendering, my films tend to delineate the experience of living between worlds and cultures with a feeling of disconnection and regaining connection, something immigrants and those from international backgrounds are faced with. My shots are often designed in a fashion that empowers the characters, rather than placing them to embody otherness.
My most recent feature-length narrative work-in-progress “Still Beating” joined forces with Orlando’s local production companies and film students in creating a thriller inspired by Floridian and Asian folktales. I strongly believe that culturally appropriate innovations are born where insights from different parts of the world are bridged together.
I am highly aware of the power dynamic between filmmakers behind the camera and subjects in front of the camera. My recent biographical documentary “Deep in the Roots” recounts the journey of Hawaiian & Puerto Rican musician Zion Cruz from playing her grandpa’s ukulele as a kid to becoming Disney’s Polynesian diva. The award-winning piece was a joint effort between me and Zion, as we closely collaborated on crafting the story and favoring the most accurate representation of my subject’s cultural upbringing.
Believing that art should be accessed and created by all, I value community-based art activities. When leading Sunspot Cinema Collective, a faculty-and-student collective fostering local film art in Central Florida, I organized activities such as exquisite-corpse-style filmmaking and semester exhibitions. For our most recent exquisite corpse project, each artist first created a 30-second silent clip based on the same theme, then we would design audio for each other’s images, and create new visuals based on the last few seconds of the previous ones. The final result is a 30-minute stunning piece with a manifold interpretation of the prompt “hidden”.
First-person voiceover, creative use of superimposed titles and texts, original minimalist music all work in dynamics to shape a sense of intimacy in my works.
Free Virtual Artists Talk with Pathways 2024: The Carlos Malamud Prize Finalists
Tuesday, July 16 at 6pm Artists: Samuel Aye-Gboyin, Fernando Ramos, and Clio Yang
View the Pathways 2024 Exhibition Catalog
About Pathways 2024: The Carlos Malamud Prize
This collaborative partnership between the Rollins Museum of Art and the UCF Art Gallery at the University of Central Florida celebrates and supports emerging professional artists working in Florida. Finalists’ works are exhibited in both locations and the winnier receive a $10,000 cash prize, a solo exhibition, a consulting session with a financial advisor, professional development, and participates as a juror for the following edition of the exhibition.
