Yahoo Finance Jin-me Yoon: Honouring A Long View
On display on the south façade of the National Gallery of Canada as part of our Leading with Women series
OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 10, 2024 /CNW/ - Visitors and passers-by can contemplate the large-scale collage Honouring a Long View, by Korean Canadian lens-based artist Jin-me Yoon, on the south exterior façade of the National Gallery of Canada (NGC). The third iteration of our Leading with Women series spotlighting the power of art to build bridges, Yoon's impressive work will adorn our iconic building until the Spring 2026.
"We're proud to continue Leading with Women with Jin-me Yoon's monumental offering, created from an earlier work that she has revisited specifically for this installation," said National Gallery of Canada Director & CEO Jean-François Bélisle. "We believe strongly in the transformative power of visual arts to build connections, nurture relationships and promote social justice; this requires championing a diversity of Canadian artistic talent."
Honouring a Long View expands on Jin-me Yoon's earlier work Long View (2017), which was created as part of the LandMarks 2017/Repères 2017, in celebration of Canada's sesquicentennial anniversary. It addresses the lingering effects of colonialism and militarism that are cloaked by the natural beauty and touristic lure of the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve, located along the west coast of Vancouver Island in the traditional territories of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations.
Yoon's new formation of the work, Honouring a Long View, proposes different ways to connect with place and history. The 80-metres long and 9-metres high installation traces the artist's lived experience of the Korean Canadian diaspora. The work is anchored by a photograph of the artist looking out toward the sea with binoculars. She gazes toward Korea from Long Beach in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve: both theatres of war during the Second World War and the Cold War, both sites of personal importance to Yoon.
By looking through her binoculars, Yoon also draws attention to the geopolitical, historical and personal meanings of local political landmarks in the vicinity of the National Gallery of Canada – such as the Peacekeeping Monument, Parliament Hill and the American Embassy – while acknowledging the deeper histories retained in the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation, and the sculpture Maman, by Louise Bourgeois.
A giant mound represents an ephemeral monument, counterpointing official accounts that either mask violence or erase the turbulent personal histories experienced by the first wave of Koreans to Canada following the nation's centennial in 1967.
"As an artist working with photography and video, Jin-me Yoon is an important member of the vibrant contemporary art community in Vancouver. Her work is recognized across Canada and internationally for contributing to the ongoing discussions concerning experience of migration and its transforming relations to places," explained Euijung McGillis, Assistant Curator, Photographs Collection, at the NGC. "Yoon's installation invites viewers to participate in her 'long view,' prompting a contemplative journey along the Gallery's facade. For the artist, what may appear to be personal narratives, in fact, imply larger social and historical considerations."
The Gallery's permanent collection comprises seven photographic works by Jin-me Yoon: Long Time So Long (Video), 2023; Untitled 9 (Long Time So Long), 2022; ChronoChrome 2 (Long Time So Long), 2022; Fugitive (Unbidden) #2, 2004; Fugitive (Unbidden) #3, 2004; Unbidden: Jungle-Swamp, 2003; and Souvenirs of the Self (Lake Louise), 1991, printed 1996.
About Jin-me Yoon
Yoon emigrated with her family from Korea to Vancouver in 1968. In 1990 she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Emily Carr College of Art and Design (now known as Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design). In 1992, after completing a Master of Fine Arts degree from Concordia University in Montreal, Yoon returned to Vancouver to begin teaching in the Visual Arts Department of Simon Fraser University's School for the Contemporary Arts, where she is currently an Associate Professor. Since 1989, her work has been exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in North America, Asia, Australia and Europe.
About the National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada (NGC) is dedicated to amplifying voices through art and extending the reach and breadth of its collection, exhibitions program, and public activities to represent all Canadians, while centring Indigenous ways of knowing and being. Ankosé—an Anishinaabemowin word that means "everything is connected"—reflects the Gallery's mission to create dynamic experiences that open hearts and minds, and allow for new ways of seeing ourselves, one another, and our diverse histories, through the visual arts. NGC is home to a rich contemporary Indigenous international art collection, as well as important collections of historical and contemporary Canadian and European art from the 14th to the 21st century. Founded in 1880, NGC has played a key role in Canadian culture for more than 140 years. For more information, visit gallery.ca.
SOURCE National Gallery of Canada
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