MM Yu

(she/her)
b 1978, Manila, Philippines
Lives and works in Manila, Philippines

Tree Grid pictures a seemingly mundane scene of everyday life in Manila. Yet, through the lens of her camera, Yu somehow captures a more picturesque side of a quotidian urban setting. Against a palette of earthy greys and dull browns, two trees grow from a side path, their sprightly green leaves filling out the literal “grid” created by the scaffolding. Between the trees are a neatly lined row of sandbags, which sit in front of a pile of rubble. The tactfully framed composition seems to draw a parallel to an art installation, or even an incomplete sketch of a landscape, with gridlines that are yet to be erased. In this simple act of taking the city and transforming it into an art object, Yu invites us to consider how a documentary image can be accidental, intuitive and deeply perceptive—a way of mediating and nurturing the relation between self and place, and the body and its environment.

Tree Grid 2017
photographic print on wood
101 x 152 cm