In philosophy, how people understand identity is a significant topic. How do we identify the true behavior of a person as genuine or specific to the person’s identity? Does that define who we identify as or is it a process of development over time? For the artist, Ye Funa, it is a much more complex creative outlet that makes us ponder about a person’s self-defining characteristics. Ye Funa dissects our multifaceted realities of social, political, and digital realms using role-playing as a new medium for contemporary fine art.
在哲学范畴中，人们如何理解自己的身份是一个重要的议题。我们如何确定一个人真实的行为是自发的还是出于自己的身份而表现出来的？这是否定义了我们的身份，亦或这是一个随时间发展的过程？对于艺术家叶甫纳来说，这是一个更复杂的创意性出口，让我们思考一个人自我定义的特征。叶甫纳将角色扮演作为当代美术的新媒介，剖析我们的社会、政治和数字领域的多方面现实。
About the artist
关于艺术家
Ye Funa is a Chinese artist that explores the relationship between the realities of everyday life, the perceived connection between authority and many areas of social life such as different power structures, ethnic groups, and the fictional space of propaganda for the concept of ‘perfection’ in an ideological system, and utopian landscape. Her works have heavy use of references, parodies, and ironic portrayals of cultures. Having graduated from the Central Saint Martins College of Art, UK with a Master’s in Fine art in 2010, she has exhibited in China, the USA, the UK, Istanbul, Switzerland, and Australia. Satire and propaganda are significant aspects of her works that highlight the uniqueness of her works. In 2014, she was awarded 2nd place for the Hua Yu Youth Award, and the Recommend young artist of Today Art Museum in 2015.
叶甫纳是一位中国艺术家，他探索了日常生活中，现实之间的关系，同时也摸索权威与社会生活中许多领域之间的感知联系，如不同的权力结构、民族，以及在一个宣传完美的虚拟意识形态系统中，还有乌托邦式的风景。她的作品大量使用借鉴、戏仿和讽刺性的文化描写。她于2010年毕业于英国中央圣马丁艺术学院，获得美术硕士学位，她的作品曾在中国、美国、英国、伊斯坦布尔、瑞士和澳大利亚展出。讽刺和宣传是她作品的重要方面，突出了她的作品的独特性。2014年，她在华语青年奖中位居第二，2015年被评为“今日美术馆”的推荐青年艺术家。
Tracing Identity through role play
通过角色扮演追踪身份
The concept of self is something Ye Funa reflects onto her works. In her short video series “Family Album” she explores the historical elements of her connection to family using moving photography. Acting as her parents and grandparents, she recreates photography into a performance that includes lip-syncs and staged photos that she places herself into. The series is like a personal historical documentary that sees the life of her predecessors and the historical background to her foundations and birth. It is the intimate exploration of what defines own her identity and assimilation of her self experienced by realizing the complex narratives of her family’s background.
叶甫纳的作品反映了自我的概念。在她的短片系列《家庭相册》中，她用移动摄影探索了她与家庭联系的一些历史因素。她的父母和祖父母出现在影像中，她把摄影重新创造成一场表演，其中包括对口型的演出和舞台摄影。该系列就像一部个人历史纪录片，讲述了她的前辈们的生活，以及她出生时的历史背景。这是一种对自己身份定义的亲密探索，在她对自己家庭背景的复杂叙述的同时也是一段经历的吸收。
“Since Family Album, role play has turned into a creative method that I now employ in my works. At the same time, I gradually shifted my perspective in creating, from an observer who often investigates to an experiencer who participates in different incidents.’
“自从《家庭相册》发行以来，角色扮演已经成为我现在作品中运用的一种创作方法。与此同时，我逐渐将创作视角从一个经常调查的观察者转变为一个参与不同事件的体验者。”
The self is formed by nature and nurture, where the influences surrounding us move us away from one path into the other. Ye Funa dives deeper into identity through the influence of her idols and muses. In her “Goddess” series, she ponders the reasons for how and why certain individuals have influenced her from the perspective of the art world.
自我是由先天和后天的培养而形成的，周围的影响将我们从一条道路转移到另一条道路。叶甫纳通过她的偶像和灵感的影响从而更深入地挖掘身份。在她的《女神》系列中，她从艺术世界的角度思考了某些人是如何以及为什么影响了她。
“…each female in the art world is known for one idiosyncratic side or characteristic, yet all individuals have many complex sides. This led me to wonder about and imagine the unknown side of them, and what it would be like if these characters from different times and spaces could come together. This kind of fascination drew me to create the Goddess series.”
“……艺术世界中的每一位女性都以一种独特的一面或特征而闻名，但每个人都有很多复杂的其它面。这让我对她们未知的一面感到好奇和想象，如果这些来自不同时空的人物能够走到一起会是什么样子。这种魅力吸引了我去创作《女神》系列。”
There are countless ways one can construct an identity and the artist covers diverse subject matters including the illusions of perceived beauty, the deceptive state of digital identity, and obscured identities based on social, political, and psychological elements. From the context of her work, it can be seen that the sources for her creation create a deeper connection between the past and present as well as between the digital and offline realms. She uses the internet as a database to create new re-enactments with different technologies such as social media and live-streaming to build new experiences while also evolving her own identity.
一个人可以通过无数种方式来构建身份，艺术家涵盖了各种各样的主题，包括感知美的幻觉、数字虚拟身份的欺骗，以及基于社会、政治和心理因素的复杂身份。从她的作品背景中可以看出，她的创作来源在过去和现在，以及线上和线下领域之间创造了更深的联系。她利用互联网作为数据库，利用社交媒体和流媒体等不同技术重新创造演绎，以建立新的体验，同时也发展自己的身份。
Filtered identities of internet culture
网络文化的滤镜身份
For Ye Funa, social media, live-streaming, and the internet are all important things that affect her artistic style. Having grown up with these digital phenomenons, her art playfully reflects society from her perspective. In “Beauty Plus Save the Real World” (2018), she manipulates the hysterical nature of the internet to describe how people use such technologies to “perform” identity. The work focuses on the use of facial image editing software, Meitu Xiuxiu, and other commoditized social media platforms that have caused the oversharing and manipulation of identity as part of desire. Consequently, manufacturing the need for likes, the use of beauty filters, and altering our perceptions of beauty, leading to the disillusionment of reality.
对叶甫纳来说，社交媒体、流媒体直播和互联网都是影响她艺术风格的重要因素。随着这些数字化的发展，她的艺术从她的角度生动地反映了社会。在《Beauty Plus Save the Real World》（2018）中，她利用互联网歇斯底里的本质来描述人们如何使用这些技术来“预制”身份。这项工作的重点是面部图像编辑软件“美图秀秀”和其他商品化社交媒体平台的使用，这些平台导致了过度分享和身份操纵，这些都是欲望的一部分。由此制造了对点赞的需求，和大量美颜滤镜的使用，这些改变我们对美的感知，导致对现实幻灭。
Through this work, Ye Funa also shows the obscure nature of our personal desires. The desire to use a virtual construct of who we think we are, and the irony of inner conflict that makes us question these desires. Here, perceived identity defines who we are, while in reality, the ability to be one’s self becomes undermined and unsheltered.
通过这部作品，叶甫纳还展示了我们个人欲望的模糊本质。渴望用一种虚拟的方式来建构我们认为自己是谁，而内心冲突的讽刺让我们质疑这些欲望。在这里，感知到的身份定义了我们是谁，而在现实中，展现真实自我的能力又会受到削弱和退缩。
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Translation 翻译 Rona Xia
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