Yue Nakayama
I Get to Have My Own Private Hope
November 11 - December 16, 2023
I Get to Have My Own Private Hope functions as a sequel of an earlier video work Looking for Love (and Job) in which Fish washes up on the shores of a new land in search of Love. The fish - an alien species - encounters a different species (Pigeons) looking for a Job. Using a variety of everyday anecdotes, the original film explores migration, job security, and the structure of power and gender in contemporary society.
In I Get to Have My Own Private Hope, Fish and Pigeon go on a quest in search of the meaning of “work” prompted by the news of the extinction of bananas, and rent that is past due. This new video piece further questions today’s work conditions and societal structures through the precarity of Fish’s life and disappearing bananas.
Yue Nakayama works with video, text, and installation. Her practice is centered on reinterpreting minor histories, memories, and personal anecdotes to stage an absurd intervention that disrupts our social expectations and perceptions. Using narrative as a foundation, her projects encompass diverse topics, with recurring themes including belief systems, power dynamics, and issues surrounding cultural, gender, and societal identities.
Her work has been exhibited and screened at museums and film festivals including Onion City Film Festival, IL, White Columns, NY, Diverse Works, TX, Contemporary Art Center New Orleans, LA, Visual Art Center UT Austin, TX, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX, and ICA Philadelphia, PA. She is the recipient of the Carol Crow Memorial Fellowship from the Houston Center of Photography, the Programmer’s Award from the Athens International Film Festival, the Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Fund from the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. The fellowships and residencies she has attended include Skowhegan, the Core Program, Vermont Studio Center, OX-Bow, and Lighthouse Works. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New Yorker, Peripheral Visions, and Glasstire.
Yue currently lives and works in San Diego, CA where she teaches in the Department of Visual Art at the University of California, San Diego.
