Say something about yourself
My earliest encounter with photography began when I was in a clinic, flipping through a NatGeo magazine with mesmerizing photographs. Never have I’ve seen the world so beautiful and detailed through the pages of a magazine. Since then, I use photography as my reason too see the world intricately and to extend my periphery of view which gives me an advantage in pushing the physical limits of my vision.
What is this series?
Space Project 2088 is a meditation on outer space, the perpetual desire to be closer with celestial space and the portrayal of Earth bound astronomical machines as a stimuli to envisage the cosmic spectrum.
Driven by my childhood dream to travel space and the gradual limitations that unfolds, this series reflects on my empirical knowledge of outer space and the pursue to delineate the two dimensional view of outer space into a tangible medium.
How/When did you start this series?
I started this series as a response to fulfill my childhood dream of going to outer space, which never happened.
In 2015, I came across a book titled, How I Became An Astronaut: Malaysia’s First Rocketman, about the first Malaysian who orbited space in 2007. His name was Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor. In his book, he made a statement that resonated with me until today, which was; “ I looked out through the tiny window — and there it was, the unmistakable third rock from the Sun we call Earth, floating in the inky darkness of space. It was more beautiful that I could have imagined. My heart felt like it had stopped beating and my eyes didn’t even blink. I just looked in awe, amazed by the beauty of space. The moment was worth dying for.”
This statement did not only triggered my inner childhood dream to go space but made me ponder at the deep sky, imagining what would it be like to be there and to take a photo of the Blue Marble aka Earth. Of course, that was only a hypothetical idea but as I progressed into creating Space Project 2088, my perception of outer space shifted continuously, with a growing frustration on the impossibility of photographing the deep space. This eventually led me to realign my perspective, to think beyond the cosmos and refocus my attention towards Earth bound subjects which offers a sentiment of space to me.
What message do you want to tell the audience?
There is a quote uttered by Cooper from my favourite movie, Interstellar which I would like to share.
“We’ve always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that. Or perhaps we’ve forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we’ve barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, because our destiny lies above us.
Any news or updates? Exhibition, book, life?
Space Project 2088 was shortlisted under the Professional Discovery Category by Sony World Photography Awards and will be exhibited at Somerset House, London from 20th April to 6th May 2018. On the same month, I will also be exhibiting my works at ICA Gallery, Tokyo as part of the Tokyo International Foto Awards. Another exhibition from my project titled, Aberrance, will take place at John Lewis Community Hub, Birmingham from 31st May to 26th June 2018 as part of the Reclaim Photography Festival and subsequently in Millepiani Space, Italy from 23rd to 31st July 2018.
Jack Yong’s photographs traverse amongst the disparate environments, fragmented nature and duality of nature-culture dichotomy. Based in Malaysia, Jack explores the contrasts and contradictions of the delicate balance within urban life and expand the wonder of both natural and constructed elements in contemporary environment as a central focus in his artistic endeavours. He documents this permanent quest of transcendence as deviant documentary observations where the apparent objectivity interweave with semantic ambiguity.
