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Introducing Number One in our series of breakthrough South West artists and filmmakers

YUDI WU

Featured work

Clink on the Moor (Chink on the Moor)

I MUST ALWAYS FUNCTION!!! - INTERACTIVE PERFORMANCE

The Lit Issue 6 GLITCH (Art direction for Issue 6 of The Literary Platform)

Profile by Professor Will Higbee @ The University of Exeter

My first encounter with Yudi was not through her creative work. I was showing a film curator and programmer who was visiting from London around Exeter and wanted to include a visit to MakeTank, a creative hub for local artists, where Yudi had been working as a Creative Producer, and a resident artist focusing on Community Arts. They generously gave time to me and my guest, offering an informed and original insight into the art works on display, as well as the creatives and artists in residence working on the upper floors of the building. In many ways, spending time with Yudi in the gallery, studio and exhibition spaces of MakeTank was a brilliant way to begin to understand them as an artist. The examples of digital art showcased below reveal Yudi’s ethos and approach to her practice as grounded in a philosophy of innovation, openness and exchange that places the artist as an empathetic interlocutor and agent for social change within their community.

In ‘Clink on the Moor’, we are presented with a shot of the artist wrestling vigorously - seemingly without purpose - with a clothes horse (that doubles as a prison gate from the ‘clink’ of the art work’s title?). This enigmatic scene is juxtaposed with the starkly beautiful (hyper-local) landscape of Dartmoor. Yudi uses these points of engaging incongruity to force us as spectators to question notions of place, identity and belonging for marginalised individuals and communities within a rural country, such as Devon. There’s also an honesty (at times brutally direct) in Yudi’s work - such as when articulating the impact of everyday discrimination and microaggressions that informs their love-hate relationship with the city they have settled in (“If only I could move to Bristol…If only I could stay in Exeter”). This appears to be a common approach in Yudi’s work: setting up a point of engagement and even a direct line of questioning and commentary with their spectator or audience. This is presented as much through text as it is the image in their artwork and shows the artist as unafraid to confront difficult or uncomfortable truths.

This strategy of engagement and interlocution between the artist/artwork and spectator continues in ‘The Red String of Fate’. Here, we are encouraged to physically and emotionally connect with the digital artwork on screen by viewing video with a red thread wrapped around our finger; positioning ourselves within the artwork through the material connection of the thread and the emotional connection to someone from our past who is no longer present in our lives. Intertwining universal questions of memory and loss with culturally specific responses (references in the work to Chinese mythology of the invisible red string tied around those we love), ‘The Red String of Fate’ encourages an open exploration of individual and communal attitudes to grief and separation, using memories as the pathway to acceptance brought by the pain of loss and absence from those we love. Finally, ‘I MUST ALWAYS FUNCTION!!!’ is a short digital animation that strips away the illusion of the seamlessly composited 3D image at the same time as it contemplates the artists’ own insecurities around conforming to social conventions and meeting (high) expectations for themself. The composite unravels and the avatar exclaims “I’m so confident…nothing is going wrong” (!!). Whilst my initial response to this 25-second digital vignette may have been laughter - and there is, undoubtedly, humour here - what stayed with me much longer was the honest message of compassion in Yudi’s work. The realisation that it’s ok to not always function productively, to show insecurity and to embrace our own imperfections is something we could all do well to hold onto.

To see more of Yudi’s work visit https://yudyw22.myportfolio.com/

Yudi’s Bio

Yudi describes themself as both a 'hyper-local Community Arts Practitioner', and an 'extremely online Creative Technologist'. Their practice is multifaceted, actively connecting Socially Engaged/Community Arts and Creative Technology to challenge the norms in both fields. They started their artistic journey by being a student activist, where they created their first photography project, to document the truths and experiences of students from ethnic minority backgrounds on Exeter's campus. This inspired them to an evolving exploration of using art and technology to create social changes.

With radical interactivity and accessibility as the underpinning theme of Yudi's work, Yudi has produced, curated and led exhibitions, festivals, and other highly participatory arts & cultural events as a Creative Producer. This later extended into community arts projects, in collaboration with organisations such as Take A Part, Maketank, and Devon Ukrainian Associations. Yudi has been working with The Lit Platform to create visuals and interactive experiences using projection, AR, and the web, leading the art direction of their latest issue, Glitch. With commissioned projects exploring queerness and neurodiversity, such as ‘Queer Practices in Creative Technologies’ and 'I MUST ALWAYS FUNCTION!!!', Yudi's work often uses tech-enabled live interactive approaches and internet culture to engage and co-create with audiences.

In 2023, Yudi was shortlisted by Arebyte’s Hotel Generation 23/24. Yudi is also a trustee at Devon Arts In Schools Initiative (DAISI), where they advocate for integrating tech in their work with school absentees and the evaluation process.

Q&A with Yudi

What do you love about creativity?

I believe that it has genuinely made me a better, happier and more rounded person. Growing up, I've never had many opportunities to learn and grow outside of the state education in a small town. My family couldn't afford vacations abroad, and they didn't have the capacity to offer me the proper art education or send me to art school (despite, ironically, a lot of them are/were artists themselves). So it took me a really long personal journey and a lot of internal struggles to finally make creativity, instead of a 'stable' corporate job, the theme of my life. And I'm glad that was the case - creativity has allowed me to perceive and know the world in a way that has truly transcended the limitations of my background. Being in creative environments has made me feel more comfortable with my vulnerabilities, more aware of my flaws and more at peace with them. At the same time, I feel strong knowing that I can always create and be creative, a sense of strength in myself that I don't need to seek from anywhere else.

What do you hate about creativity?

I don't think I'd ever be able to hate creativity itself - but sometimes I do hate where this word is situated in our wider system. There seems to be a discourse of, whether intentionally or unintentionally, believing that creativity exists in a vacuum, regardless of our material conditions and systemic issues. This unfortunately has made the Creative/Arts & Cultural industry sometimes a very exploitative place, or, at the very least, hindering its ability to bring social change. I also hate how creativity has simultaneously been made a scarcity in this process, leading many to think that they cannot be, or don’t deserve to be ‘creative’.

For this reason, I'm very glad that my first industry experience was through Maketank, working with local communities and grassroots artists, in the framework of local regeneration and bringing social change. The constant production of all the socially engaged artistic programmes has really set an important value for my practice - championing the creative agency of those who the system has been neglecting.

Exeter to me is….?

A love-hate relationship. I'm very glad that I didn't go to London after graduating - I love the local community and the people around here. Sure the resources aren't like London - yet I feel like I've received the best possible support and love as an artist/creative who's just starting their career, as people here really value the sense of community and people around them.

I can’t simply overlook the issues in this place, which, I believe, has limited Exeter’s ability to cultivate a better life for its communities - empty shops, lack of space and resources for arts & culture, dispersed population, lack of diversity, low young people retention rate... I deeply feel the importance of my work because of these issues. The amazing people around here, along with the difficulties of making socially engaged work happen around here, have become my reasons to fight. I deeply appreciate my journey during IMMERGE, a community art project where we worked with local young people from immigrant backgrounds - the young people have all finished the project loving Exeter a bit more, and believing that they can also create change in this place… that’s why I create, and what I’m creative for.

Yudi