Colette Fu is a photographer and artist who specializes in pop-up artists’ books. Fu grew up in New Jersey but said that she was not proud of her Chinese heritage. After college, Fu traveled to Kunming in Yunnan Province of China where her mother was born.
“Yunnan is China’s most southwestern Province, sharing borders with Tibet, Burma, Laos, and Vietnam. With snow-capped mountains to the Northwest and tropical rainforests to the South, Yunnan is rich in natural resources and has the largest diversity of plant life in China. This diversity extends it its population as well.” Fu ended up staying there for three years, learning about her heritage and its people.
Fu learned that Yi Tribe is part of her own heritage. She said, “25 of the 55 minority tribes of China reside in Yunnan Province and comprise less than 8.5% of the nation’s population, with the Han representing the majority. My mother is a member of the black Yi tribe; her grandfather was Lung Yun 龙云, governor of Yunnan from 1927-1945 and commander-in-chief of the 1st Army Group. Learning about my Yi ancestry in my mid-twenties inspired me to begin this work.” (from the artist’s website.)
Her artists’ book on Yi people is a celebration of her heritage. And what a celebration this is!
May is Asian American and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month. Stay tuned for more artworks created by AAPI artists this month.
Yi costume festival
2013.
[Philadelphia? : Collete Fu], 2013.
1 v. (unpaged) : ill. ; 43 cm. + 1 artist’s sheet
From the We are Tiger Dragon People series.
A pop-up book made from Fu’s photographs.