Cherish-Chinese Family in Britain

Commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery
Cherish-Chinese Families in Britain was part of the National Portrait Gallery’s acclaimed programme “Reaching Out, Drawing In. It was a series of national-wide creative community engagement with British-Chinese families and an exhibition that explored photographic family portraits and family album. In 2006, Yan Preston was commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery in collaboration with Chinese Arts Centre to deliver the project in Manchester. Photographer Anthony Lam and Pamela So worked in London and Glasgow respectively. For three months, Yan worked with three Chinese/English families. Together they created two pieces of installations and one video work which used family snapshots, painting, sound recording, installation, newspaper cutting as well as Chinese traditional handcraft to make the work. The resulting exhibition was shown in the National Portrait Gallery from September 2006 to March 2007 and received more than 50,000 visitors. 'Cherish has provided a unique opportunity for the Chinese community to represent themselves within a national gallery. The families have all worked with leading Chinese photographers who have given them the skills and confidence to document their own lives. This is a really important exhibition as it presents a realistic glimpse of Chinese contemporary life in Britain and draws our attention to the similarities, and differences, between these families and our own. ' Sarah Champion, CEO of the Chinese Arts Centre
Video above: Michael Logan's Family Story
More process photos:
Below: more images for the project process and exhibition space. Click on the thumnails to see larger images.
  1. View Cherish-Space-1
  2. View Cherish-Space-2
  3. View Cherish-Space-3
  4. View Doris making her work ©Y Preston
  5. View Logan Family Slideshow ©Y Preston
  6. View Lam Family on completion of their work ©Y Preston
  7. View Family snapshot used in Li Family's work supplied by S. Li
  8. View Family snapshot used in Li Family's work supplied by S. Li
  9. View Li Family's work in process ©Y Preston
  10. View Visitor reading Lam's Family Rules ©Y Preston
Cherish-Chinese Families in Britain is the fifth project of National Portrait Gallery's highly-acclaimed 'Reaching Out, Drawing In' project. It is set to celebrate the diversity of communities in Britain. The theme of this project is 'family ablums'. Yan was specially commissioned by the National Portrait Gallery, among with artists Anthony Lam from London and Pamela So from Glasgow. In the summer of 2006 Yan worked with three Chinese and Chinese-English families in Greater Manchester Area to produce their family albums. Apart from the new photographs taken by Yan , the families also used family archives, photo-installations, slideshows, sound recording, paintings and Chinese traditional handcraft to express how it is like to be a Chinese in England. The exhibition run from September 2006 to March 2007. It received more than 50,000 visitors and extremely positive feedbacks. Exhibition links: http://www.npg.org.uk/live/wocherish.asp http://www.untoldlondon.org.uk/news/ART41432.html Comments from Sarah Champion, CEO of Chinese Arts Centre 'Cherish has provided a unique opportunity for the Chinese community to represent themselves within a national gallery. The families have all worked with leading Chinese photographers who have given them the skills and confidence to document their own lives. This is a really important exhibition as it presents a realistic glimpse of Chinese contemporary life in Britain and draws our attention to the similarities, and differences, between these families and our own.'
岩Insert body text here...

Yan

Preston

You are viewing the text version of this site.

To view the full version please install the Adobe Flash Player and ensure your web browser has JavaScript enabled.

Need help? check the requirements page.

Get Flash Player