May Yeung
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And I think the art and the joy of creating is an expression of inter-generation care, both for Archer and also for the other youths who needed the most in my community. So one of the pieces actually, Vince, you saw in person at League of Faith was an art piece I created for a Mother Nature Next Generation exhibition.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
With me trying to express the excitement and the joy of watching life grow into something wonderful, perhaps something very small. The bamboo steamer used in League of Faith, which is the largest handmade bamboo steamer ever made in Hong Kong. is a piece of cultural heritage that represents all the things I really enjoyed growing up that I wish to pass on to next generations.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Actually, on a side note, why I decided to name him Chagall is because I really hope that he could aspire to be like the artist Mark Chagall, who is basically a very innovative, innovative person who also went through a lot of challenges in life, but she still managed to get to become one of the most celebrated artists in the history of art.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Yeah, sure. One of the motifs that I have in my artwork is definitely Hong Kong's culture. And when we talk about Hong Kong's culture, it's not only being selling boat and all those things, but it's really little things, little precious moments in daily life. So it can be a dumb song. It can be Chinese checkers and all those things.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And that's why I actually incorporated Dim Sum Steamer and French Made Art Festival Savannah Exhibition back in 2017, as well as Mother Nature and Next Generation Exhibition. I think Dim Sum, this intangible cultural heritage, is something that is really worth talking to people and actually people from all over the world to treasure.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And Chinese checkers and even ping pong balls are things that I really love playing as a little girl. And so that's something that I, it's really fun to actually see them shy in my artwork.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Yes. It has always been great working with Dachuan Samge. They are the fifth generation of bamboo artisans in Hong Kong. And it's really fascinating to see them that they still handcraft bamboo steamers, which is not easy. Actually, a lot of the steamers these days are actually made with a mix of bamboo and metal.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
What they do for us, working together with us for the exhibition makes it even more precious. And I always love to incorporate some fun food elements into my work. I think not only experience my other half, but also just experienced by me growing up, it's always trying to treasure food.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Like even, for example, a few years ago, for Art of My Family's program, we had a two-year program related to marine conservation. So in 2020, we actually recycled over a few hundreds of seashells and turned it into artwork. And the children actually interviewed fishermen, fifth generation of fishermen in Aberdeen.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
to create artwork related to Chinese bone script culture, as well as actually exhibiting their work in tycoon. And then the next year we worked on ideas related to the sea and seafood as well, because we also believe in sustainable seafood. The kids actually drew on Japanese postcards, what we call atagami. and to express the importance of making things sustainable.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Yeah, sure. One of my most memorable art pieces I created is What If, which was one of my favorite art pieces I created while studying at the University of Chicago in 2012. That is the piece that made me the first Asian sculptor. to debut my work at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel and Chicago Union Station.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
In creating this piece, I actually want to encourage people to take a moment and think outside the box and also appreciate life's endless possibilities. I believe that art is like a Life has a lot of twists and turns that can change one's perspective and lead to new discoveries.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
If I have to pick one more art piece to talk about, it would have to be Blossom Love, which I created for Dutch Days in Hong Kong 2022. an event created together with the Netherlands Conflict General and Hong Kong Macau. This piece was actually inspired by the Netherlands state of the art, a sustainable urban development and water management system.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Wood is a medium that I often use in my artwork, including this piece, and I want the audience to envision iconic Dutch tulips and houseboats with the seaways representing the Dutch spirit and tackling and many urban resilience issues. So I think this piece actually serves as a bridge between Falkland and Netherlands and is a bridge that I hope will inspire more ideas sharing collaborations.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Before answering your question, I actually want to give a little bit of a story behind why I set up Art of My Family in the first place. And then I'll talk a little bit more about what I plan to do and as well as how I assess myself. I actually, back then, as I mentioned earlier, I was serving as the CRSL lead at Deliveroo.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Hi, everyone. My name is Mei. I'm a teaching artist and while I'm a doctor, I'm also the founder of Art of My Family, a charity dedicated to organize community art events with sustainability elements.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And I was launching a food recovery program where we managed to save a substantial amount of food and beverages and also provided thousands of meals for the community. And that's when I realized my potential in supporting the community. And I decided to lean towards my passion for the arts and recognize that many underprivileged children did not have the chance to learn art as I did.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
That's why I decided to set up Art of My Family in 2018. In terms of assessment, I would say that there's always world beyond world. And I just feel so blessed to be part of the Art of My Family. Also, the family just continued to grow. One of our key programs is actually our team artist scheme, which is basically striving to nurture the next generation of creative and artistic talents.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And for that program back then, we mainly partnered with the Hong Kong Design Institute. And now we actually expanded our program to, besides HKDI, we expanded to Metropolitan University, City University. and also CC Design. So it's very exciting to see how the family grow and we definitely want to continue to expand that to other universities in Hong Kong.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
But I think also one point in terms of what I really want to do, I think one point really worth mentioning is that many children and youth in Hong Kong these days actually go through emotional turmoil. And the World Economic Forum actually projected the emotional problems would be one of the biggest problems by 2030.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And the cost of mental health conditions would actually skyrocket to 6 trillion US dollars globally by then. And so Art of My Family actually has launched programs like Hearts at Home program the past year. We helped to further expand this program to help strengthening the mental wellness of children with disabilities and also those that lack family care, including those in a memorial home.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So our goal was actually to ultimately help those, help them to integrate into society and to walk out of the shadow of the family negligence. Besides Artsy Art Scheme and also Heartset Composer, we actually architected sculptures with unique characteristics in all 18 districts of Hong Kong to show the importance of art in not only beautifying the city, but also supporting the mental well-being.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
My life mission is to inspire the next generation of artists and art educators. That's also why I decided to be a teaching artist. Because as a teaching artist, my goal is to leverage my experiences as a working professional, but also provide support. a unique link between the creative process and also the art-based learning.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And that's why I always try to develop specialized curriculum approaches to engage diverse groups from people with disabilities to patients. And in particular, actually, my charity, Art of My Family, is a cool educational philosophy involved around the three Cs, co-design, co-creating, co-learn.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So for example, the exhibition you visited in July, we actually co-designed backdrops and competition joint outlines with university students. We co-created artwork with subdivided unit children, including the Seeds of Hope icon wall, and co-learned with other peers at the design institute.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So I think what's special about teaching artists is that in the classroom, the other emerging artists and I actually work alongside the students. And we try to model the creative journey and also demonstrate the importance of the students. And by sharing our real world experiences, we learn street cred lessons, offering first-hand guidance on techniques and navigating the art world.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So I really believe that a symbolic relationship between the teaching artist practice and also the environment causes creativity, dialogue, and growth for both me and my students.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So the teaching artist role is one of the provocation, inspiration, using my artistic experience to diversify the creative practice and also to achieve my mission to inspire the next generation of artists and art educators.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
He's a talkative baby already, so I'm sure he'll be a talkative kid. Really appreciate it, May. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vince. Thank you so much for the opportunity. And Archie and I look forward to catching up with you soon again.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Sure. Growing up, I've always really enjoyed art more than anything else. And much some kids prefer playing sports, art really came naturally to me. So from the time I was around two years old, I would draw on walls before I could even write my name. And art was one of the ways my parents and I bonded. So when I was three, my mother taught me how to sew origami.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And by five years old, my father and I were creating ceramics together. At age 12, my positive experiences with arts from my childhood really gave me the conviction to become an artist, during which I had a fascination with Dadaism and pop art. And I eventually went to the University of Chicago to study arts.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
This is where I met Professor Jeff Oppenheimer, who gave a lecture on integrating art into daily life and daily life into art. And the contents of this lecture really helped form the framework and direction of my art to this day, and also were one of the major factors in my decision to become a sculptor specializing in pop art and large installations for public spaces.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
For me, art is a way of self-expression as well as a way of communication with others. And I think the power of art is that even for words that cannot be expressed, it can be experienced through art. And I think, as I mentioned earlier, Professor Jeff Obertheimer, actually, as well as Professor Laura Lipsinski, both of them play a very important role in my artistic career.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
They really encouraged me to jump outside of the box and incorporate some of the daily life materials into my artwork and that's also my philosophy as an artist too.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Yeah, sure. Besides art, I also received a musical education from a very young age, receiving tutelage from Hong Kong conductor Mr. Jimmy Chan and the late Mr. Dai Si Chong, who actually taught a lot of famous singers in Hong Kong, including Andy Lau and all those other singers.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And I was also taught piano by a Chinese pianist, Mao Zedong, and very luckily became the distinguished winner of the Sueder Hong Kong Youth Piano Competition. So I actually used a lot of my dramatic experiences to create sculptures and direct dance and musical performances that amplified some hints of each other.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And when I first returned to Hong Kong in 2015, I served as the visual arts director and showcased my sculpture, Kukun, using textiles at the residence of the Netherlands Council General to Hong Kong, Macau, for a experimental performance.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And even later until in 2018, for the French May Art Festival, I directed the L'Opening Nec-Mectre Interpretive Dance and Music Performance, where I fused Chinese and French musical instruments and facilitated collaboration between the artists. And so I'm very excited about the upcoming show, which is the Discovery Art Fair in Frankfurt. I will present my artwork called Musical Xanthus.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
It is actually an artwork, a series of sculpted vases in the form of a musical rest in a garden of sprouting daisies.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
and I will actually hand-painted them and the artwork is really aimed to calm the mind and encouraging the viewers to actually withdraw themselves from the bustling city lives to relax, to enlarge, to recharge and to reflect and the reason why I actually chose musical rest is because I believe that the absence of sound
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
in a musical score actually provides dynamics, builds tension, and actually maintain the rhythm, even change the tempo of the theme. And I really hope that as music is everywhere, and I really want that through art and music, which are both universal language, to actually have to cross beyond borders and cultures.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
My transition from finance to startup and then to art was a kind of gradual realization of my calling in life and what I really wanted to do through my career. And earlier you mentioned I worked in finance. I was an analyst at Goldman in the US and back then I had the opportunity to work on the CSR initiative and the experience really impacted me.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Specifically, the community team works, which provided relief efforts for victims of Hurricane Sandy. And so I actually, at that time, I helped organizing community art events and it became a really fond memory for me and inspired me to shift my career towards focusing and making a positive social impact.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Coming back to Hong Kong, I then joined the founding team of the Liberal Hong Kong Office as the Social Responsibility Lead. food recovery programs um and uh providing meal free meals for the community and so seeing the potential for corporations to support their communities really solidified my desire to use my abilities to benefit those in need
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And all these experience and also with personal help challenge that's actually led me back to my original passion for art as a pop art sculptor and also the founder of the charity Art of My Family. I now really delegate work. dedicate my career to bring creative opportunities to underprivileged youth in Hong Kong, sticking the values of ART art, which is affirmation, resilience, and faithfulness.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So today I look back at my career transitions and I realized that the nature of my various roles, be it finance, be it startup, it was really my calling to do social work. And the spirit of perseverance I gradually developed through these appearances is really what shaped me who I am today.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Sure. So before my cancer, I was wrapped in my own cocoon. And growing up, I was a relentlessly perfectionist. So I set very high standards for myself. I was very critical of myself, of everything from work to daily life. And back then, I micromanaged all the operations of my design company, Art and Love, and also my charity, Art of My Family.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
I think my cancer, my fight with cancer really gave me a new perspective on life. I transformed into someone who really placed emphasis on faith. And when I say faith, I would say F really stands for having faith in myself. Instead of challenging what I do all the time, I actually embrace it and have confidence in myself. And A, it's feeling alive and celebrating small things in life and
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
It's not easy to be a sculptor. A lot of times things are being affected by the temperature, things are affected by the humidity. But celebrate the small things in life and you'll become a happier artist. I is creating impact on society by making a difference one step at a time. That's also my mission no matter as a sculptor or as a community artist.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
And T is really touching lives and hearts by helping people around me. And so really happy to have set up Art of My Family to achieve that. And H, taking better care of my mental and physical health, as well as actually helping the mental wellness of people around me as well.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
So I think the CAMTA experience really let me feel a greater sense of conviction to serve the underprivileged, whether through events such as French May, Fel de Molde, Panda Workshops, to Mother Nature and Next Generation Exhibitions.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Just give me one moment. Archer is coming over soon.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Okay. Did you interrupt his afternoon baby sleep? Beauty sleep? Actually, he was awake before the call, but then he fell asleep. Yes, like this. Okay. Hi! Yes, hi! I'm trying to grab a photo of the three of us. Let's see. Okay.
Chief Change Officer
#200 May Yeung: Art, Advocacy, and a Toddler Takeover in Hong Kong
Speaking of motherhood, my journey actually really inspired a new purpose for my art creations. From my pregnancy to the birth of my son, Archer, that's when I realized that my work could be created with the goal of enriching the next generation, regardless it's maybe work or regardless art pieces.