User:Ilamchen/Man Yu

Man Yu Fung Li (n. February 19 th, 1978, Hong Kong), a.K.a. Man Yu, is a Costa Rican artist and activist born in Hong Kong. Her specialty field has been painting, but also incorporates multiple multidisciplinary media such as installation art, video art and performance art. Part of her work focuses on human anatomy, the different non-physical layers of the human being, humanism and respect for living beings.

Her artworks are found in various collections of international institutions, among which are the Ministry of Culture (China), the China Post, the Hanwei International Arts Center, the National Gallery of Costa Rica, the Juan Santamaría International Airport, the National Bank of Costa Rica and the Costa Rican Chamber of Commerce.

Parallel to her work as an artist, Man Yu is part of relieve teams in countries suffering from natural disasters in Central America and South America, and an activist against global warming and animal abuse.

1978-1987: First years of life
Man Yu was born in Kowloon City, Hong Kong, on February 19 th, 1. She is the daughter of Pik Luen Li Kan and Tak Fu Fung Ng, who fought in World War II.

Following the war experience, Man Yu's father decided to leave Hong Kong before the city ended the English regime and returned to the Chinese government. Thus, Tak Fu emigrated with his family in search of peace to Costa Rica, a country without an army since 1949, when its president Oscar Arias received the Nobel Peace Prize. This biographical aspect describes that the migration context of Man Yu was very different from the one of the majority of the Chinese population in Costa Rica, who migrated for reasons of economic stability and established themselves as merchants , unlike Man Yu who dedicated herself to art.

1987-1996: Art from the childhood and youth
While in San José, Man Yu faced a strong period of bullying caused by her physical and cultural differences, accentuated by being the oldest girl of the generation, since, at 8 years old, she was enrolled in the first grade of school. The artist comments in different interviews, that in addition to being ridiculed and physically assaulted by children, the mockery was also joined by some teachers and even the bus driver, who mocked along with the passengers, by not stopping completely to pick it up at the school stop.

For this reason, in different interviews with the artist is told that during breaks she locked herself in the bathroom, and on the doors and walls she drew scenes and stories of children who had normal lives, in addition to responding to the graffiti with positive messages. These frequent and repetitive incidents were the driving force for Man Yu, who did not speak fluent Spanish, to explore forms of expression through art and writing.

Most of the time she drew but she also experimented with other materials and, at the age of 9, she painted her first oil painting showing a human skin hanging on a hook on a wall next to an empty crib. Man Yu was representing what she saw of life: people were a walking suit that they dressed in order to exist, but their real being was invisible. This painting, entitled "Human Suit" was the product of introspection that the artist made when she saw the world as a spectator, without being able to join the rest of the children. In addition, as Man Yu comments in several interviews, due to poor academic performance, she was punished at home by taking away all the artistic materials, which is why she got up at night to draw on the wood base under the mattress of the bed with hidden pencils.

Most of these events occurred during primary school at the Catholic Active School, from which she graduated from sixth grade. Subsequently, she joined the Costa Rica Academy in high school, where she was also a victim of bullying, but to a minor degree. She attended there for a couple of years and then she was transferred to the San Judas Tadeo School, by economic decision of the parents. At the San Judas Tadeo, teenage Man Yu began to rebel and defend herself, to the point that she physically assaulted a teacher who discriminated against her in class, triggering her first academic expulsion. From that moment on, she was expelled from multiple private schools due to her lack of social adaptation.

Subsequent to this, Man Yu relates in different interviews that her family lost all the businesses and properties, reason why she was moved to the Night Highschool in Costa Rica, where she met people of various ages, from the street, thugs and transvestites. At this time, she stopped being a victim of bullying and found friends between the students. However, she could not finish high school at the Night Highschool, since her rebellion caused her expulsion, which is why she was entering and leaving different academic institutes, finishing high school due to maturity outside the traditional academy.

1998-2004: The gestation of art
Appeased the adolescent rebellion, Man Yu entered Veritas University in the advertising design career. She relates that she had very bad grades in the assignments related to administration and accounting, however, the good results she obtained in the artistic courses were highlighted, which is why she had chosen the career.

However, Man Yu could not continue studying because in 1999 she got pregnant at the age of 21, as a result of a relationship she had with a known young rebel from Calle de la Amargura. The details of this pregnancy were relevant to the development of Man Yu's artistic career, since the attachment to her future son was what would lead her to get closer to the arts again.

Upon finding out the pregnancy, their conservative Chinese father forced them to live together and the young man to look for job. This situation was unsustainable due to the immaturity of both who were not ready to assume a life with adult responsibilities, especially due to the lack of academic and professional preparation of the young man. As a result, added to the emotional instability of the relationship, they broke up and Man Yu's mother decided to send her to live in the United States with her older sister, since the pregnancy of a single mother generated a very bad reputation for the family within the Chinese community.

Thus, Man Yu lived most and the final part of her pregnancy in the United States, first at her sister's house, which she had to leave due to death threats from her brother-in-law. Later at the house of the guru Posteriormente en casa del gurú Mohan Singh, who used to be her friend from childhood until, in that period, instead of helping her, he decided to kidnap her. After managing to escape his kidnapper, she lived as a homeless in Miami for a couple of months, finally, after having an event with Elizabeth Taylor and having the opportunity through her to access a computer with internet and telephone, she returned to Costa Rica thanks to the support of a stranger who answered her call at the LACSA call center.

Upon returning to Costa Rica, Man Yu suffered a run over a few days before having a baby, just after leaving a prenatal checkup. The success that took place on the outskirts of Bansbach in San José Downtown, when a black van driven by a drunk person, passed the red light and got over the sidewalk, lashing out at Man Yu. Man Yu died for a few minutes but nothing happened to the baby, although medical care was negligent. This event ended in an unsuccessful trial.

As a consequence of the accident, Man Yu had her baby 2 days later via cesarean section. Thus, on February 1 th, 2000, David, her eldest son, was born. Man Yu's relationship with art is rooted in these events that took place during her pregnancy that greatly strengthened her relationship with her son. When he was in elementary school, Man Yu repeatedly insisted to the teachers that he was being bullied, but the school Principal personally showed her that it was not true, from which she referred her to the school psychologist.

On the advice of the psychologist, Man Yu returned to the art that she had put aside during his entire process of pregnancy, kidnapping, homeless living and abuse. The psychologist recommended her to Nelly Eyo, an Argentine artist, with whom Man Yu began to formalize her independent studies in painting, specifically pastel and the human figure. She studied with Nelly for several years and with her she met other teachers with whom she also learned independently, among them Julio Escámez, Chilean master artist. She was a disciple of Julio for several years learning about oil painting immersively in his workshop.

2004-2010: Women of the Orient
By 2005, Man Yu had completed her first collection of works, titled "Women of the Orient" with 10 large-format works in pastel that referred to the symbolism, color, and mysticism of Asian culture, and specifically exemplification. of their women. In addition to addressing the aesthetic from figurativeism, concepts such as motherhood, nostalgia, marriage and women in general are addressed too. The series compiles Japanese geishas and Chinese operas with Man Yu's explicit purpose of reflecting that despite the insistence of the Japanese and Chinese people to differentiate themselves and not be confused, the essence of femininity in their traditions and allegorical aesthetics are similar and projected to the West where they are received with the same cultural perception.

This collection was exhibited for the first time in 2016 as a solo exhibition in the 1887 Gallery of the National Center for Culture in Costa Rica, curated by Adriana Collado. This was Man Yu's first exhibition experience, from which it is related that, due to the inexperience and ignorance of the context and dynamics of the artistic scene, she inaugurated the exhibition as a Chinese festival with food, lion dance, Chinese tamales, Chinese fried rice and more than the normal things served in the regular exhibitions of the moment.

Most of the artpieces of this collection were sold after being exhibited in different places in the national context, especially in commemoration of Chinese ephemeris and exhibitions of the Confucius Institute in Costa Rica. .

2010-present: the Human Suit project
Later and simultaneously, Man Yu kept working on independent works, mostly figurative and realistic, in pastel chalk, acrylic, oil and watercolor, focused on portraiture, human anatomy, humanism and spirituality, from which other works emerged with social and feminist nature.

In different interviews, it is related that one afternoon while her mother was checking cellars to clear them, she found the painting that Man Yu had painted as a child, where a human skin hung on a hook on a wall next to an empty crib. Before discarding it as trash, she showed it to Man Yu so she could decide what to do with it. At that time, Man Yu considered that this painting had helped her cope and emotionally survive bullying situations, making her understand, since the age of 9, that the body she had was only the physical layer of her existence. From this, she decided to start a new series of works, Human Suit, which developed the theme from more perspectives, now that her artistic technique had already become professional. . In these several interviews, the artist comments that when she came across painting, she decided to create a series of large formats that would have a healing contribution to society, for which reason she tried to make the series Human Suit, a "journey full of subjective and surreal experiences, to cover themes from the most superficial, such as physical beauty, to the deepest, delving into themes of human essence and purpose" says Man Yu. “HS, Human Suit is the duality of the tangible and the intangible, the visible and the invisible, the physical and the immaterial of the human being”, makes explicit Man Yu in multiple interviews.

Many works in the series used the same elements from the first Human Suit work that Man Yu painted as a child. Everything in color represents the physical sphere, the tangible, as objects, or as our ephemeral human body. The clothes hook is a metaphor for the ephemeral time that supports physical life. Man Yu also added other new symbols not found in this painting, such as bodies in achromatic tones, representing the metaphysical bodies, the true "I", red threads, representing the blood that make the mechanics of the "suit" work; and needles that patch the life of the "human suit" through pain. On the other hand, non-pictorial installations such as the notebook, the mirror and the desks are works that frame the viewer within the reality of the artist and conceptualize the message exposed in the works.

To this pictorial collection consisting of 28 works painted between 2013 and 2019 were added the original work of 1987, two installations and several multidisciplinary artistic collaborations that involved video, performance, fashion design, videomapping and happening with 33 other artists, through of which Human Suit is explained from a different perspective, in order to be closer to those audiences with different artistic affinities..

In this way, guest artists such as Diego Esquivel, with his videomapping piece, reinterprets Human Suit on the work “The Perfect Suit”; Helen Núñez and Julián García work on video art together with Man Yu, social concepts to which humans are tied and conditioned based on the suit they wear; Vernny Argüello audio-visually develops a script for Man Yu that delves into the virtual layers that are positioned above the human suit; as well as Cristian Esquivel, Estefanía Madrigal and dancers from Niaballet interpret the heaviness of the skin and physical existence through performance.

In addition, musicians Ronald Bustamante, Juan Dahik, Leonardo Gell, Marcela Membreño and David Castillo, perform as guest artists in different activations of the project, along with the performance and singing of Laura Barquero. And apart, Zoë June Zeegelar, Rogelio Fernández, David Castillo, Andrea Rojas, Alejandro Peinador, Alana Peinador and Abbie Chang collaborate with their interpretations in front of the videoart cameras.

As part of the multidisciplinary exploration and collaborative work between artists from different unions, 11 fashion designers from the Creative University (Laura Vargas Tuk, Pamela Vargas, Joselyn Lam, Kendry Guido, Maureen Berrocal, Tatiana Marín, Yorleny Artavia, Jimena Sanz, Gimena Ramírez, Cristi Blanco and Sheyla Palma), under the direction of Rob Chamaeleo and the starting point of Man Yu, created 40 pieces of clothing to reinforce the message of the Human Suit.

Also, there was the participation of Ángel Lara, with sculpture; Juan José Durán, with fashion illustration; Alejandro Rambar, with a paper design; Andrés Valverde, with photography; so that they could join the Human Suit project with an artistic proposal that would address the issue of the life burdens that creep with the Human Suit. . The contributions of these artists pointed to the message being deepened from other points of view, other ideologies and other artistic techniques, and expanded through the complement of Man Yu's pictorial work, and they are an official part of the traveling exhibition project together with the collection of 29 oil paintings.

Thus, declared of national cultural interest by the Minister of Culture Sylvie Durán and the President of the Republic Carlos Alvarado   , Human Suit activated with its works National Gallery of Costa Rica , the Municipal Museum of Cartago  , the Arts Center of the Technological Institute of Costa Rica, the Cultural Center of Spain , the Beijing World Art Museum    , the Womens Museum of Costa Rica and the Skawak Plaza between Cctober 2018 until August 2019.

The last work of the Human Suit circuit, executed on August 30, 2019, had special notoriety from the media. It was about the artistic performance/happening “I'm Not This Suit” in which around 100 naked people interpreted the stigmas and social conditioning of the trajines that each person lives with their human suits. The performance was the first massive public artistic nude in the Central American region. With the happening, the artist intervened the public space with a performance / happening also referring to Human Suit. Man Yu recruited 100 participants of all kinds so that the event could be collective, participatory, inclusive and intuitive. “I'm Not This Suit” followed the same aesthetic line of the series but emphasizing allowing participants to project themselves in the various physical, social, psychological, emotional or spiritual reasons that motivated them to join the artistic proposal. .

Guest artists who were part of the artistic activation and also of the complete Human Suit Circuit complemented the work with their interpretation: The musician behind the Theremin, Ronald Bustamante as Antisentido; and the actor behind EVO, Cristian Esquivel.

Likewise, the videoarts of the project participated in the European International Film Festival held in Russia, in which one of them, worked in collaboration with Helen Núñez and Julián R. García, won the award for best short film. .

According to the Latin American art magazine Hypermedia Magazine, the Traje Humano project caught the attention of the Costa Rican and Central American art scene, not only because it was the first time that so many artists joined to expand the work of a single living artist and for making the first massive nude public in the region, but also because it set a precedent in the cultural management of the region by also involving for the first time a wide portfolio of public, private and independent collaborators who supported a project of social and humanistic public exhibition from art ,

Awards and exhibitions highlights
Man Yu has obtained various recognitions for his works, such as the award for best short film in the European International Film Festival and the declaration of national cultural interest by the Costa Rican Government    , as well as prizes at the Show Art of the Italian Association of Artists in Buenos Aires, the Winter Hall of the ESART Gallery in Barcelona and at the Historical Research Institute Roca Museum. She also represented Costa Rica at the Beijing International Art Biennale of 2017  , at the Latin American Art Festival in Beijing in 2019    , as well as in the official issuance of commemorative envelopes of the China Post in 2019.