Footnotes

PROVENANCE
The Gene & Brian Sherman Collection, Sydney

EXHIBITED
Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 14 May - 26 July 2015
13th Biennale of Sydney 2004: On Reason and Emotion, Museum of Sydney, Sydney, 7 August 2004 -28 February 2005

LITERATURE
Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015, p. 200, p. 201 (detail illus.), p. 202 (illus.), p. 227

'One of the major themes in Yin's work is the notion of displacement, and her semi-nomadic lifestyle allows her to expose rapidly changing landscapes across numerous cities...Yin started the Portable Cities series in 2001, with her first instalment representing the city she came from: Portable City: Beijing. In these works, she used standard-sized opened suitcases within which she rendered cityscapes by hand. Yin takes clothes that were either hers or given to her by family members or friends and uses these textiles to make scaled-down landmarks relevant to particular cities. For example, Portable City: Sydney (made for the Biennale of Sydney in 2004) illustrates standout iconic buildings such as Sydney Tower, the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, all sewn using varying types of fabric, cord and thread. The textures of the material are matched diligently to reflect specific surfaces appropriate to certain types of architecture, such as speckled fawn coloured jumper used to represent the pebbled forecourt of the Opera House. In the middle of the very blue 'harbour' is a hole that the viewer can peep into, revealing a magnified, illuminated map of downtown Sydney. There is also a sound element which reproduces the noise of the city to further enhance the viewer's encounter.

Yin has now created over thirteen cities, and they are all places with which she has had a relationship as either a resident or tourist. When her suitcases are shut, these cities become portable, easily taken to another destination and reopened to prompt different memories in new locations.'

Natalie Seiz, 'Yin Xiuzhen' in Go East: The Gene & Brian Sherman Contemporary Asian Art Collection, Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2015, p. 200