Art is sometimes seen as useless. It’s certainly widely argued that humanities degrees have less value than those in the sciences and if you’re in it for the money, studying English or Art is generally not advised. Born in China, this narrative was present when Wenqing Yan, a 30 year old artist, illustrator, graphic novelist and co-founder of Axent Wear was growing up. Wenqing Yan goes by the artist name Yuumei is a Chinese American and has been using her art for self-expression and activism.
Yuumei grew up under polluted skies and dreamed of distant green forests and wide blue seas from a young age. By the time she was two, she had started doodling animals on everything she could find. Originating from China, working hard and focussing on the sciences was beaten into Yuumei since she was born. She studied hard and got straight As in school, while only taking the occasional art class on the side. Many Asian children carry the burden of their family’s future and pride; Asian parents aren’t always supportive of creative careers and tend to push for careers as doctors or lawyers because that’s where you’re believed to make the most money.
Yuumei’s father left to pursue unrealistic ideas of wealth when she was 2 and her mother moved to the US to pursue the American dream when Yuumei was 5. She was granted a visa to come live with her mum when she was 9, but her father stayed behind in China and her parents divorced. While grappling to come to terms with the language and family tensions, Yuumei ended up on DeviantArt, where she found a community of artists when she was 12. Her gallery reflected the conflicts in her life, such as bloodied angels, fake wings and dreams made out of lies. She fell in love with science and kept working hard at school while posting her art online. Creating her art was both fun and at times the only way to release the confusion and frustrations in her life. She recalls that the feedback from the DeviantArt community was always interesting, usually encouraging and at times challenging.
“And without realising it, this distant connection to millions of strangers shaped my life more than the parents that I barely [still talked to].”
Title: Come Undone “All tied up / Loose to the touch / Tethered to such / Fragile existence.”
This sentiment rings deeply true to my own teenage years. I was born in 1995 and spiralled into depression when I was 13 years old, at the start of secondary school. I didn’t speak to my parents a lot and found refuge in the online AMV community (Anime Music Videos), where teens from all over the world created and shared fan videos on Youtube. I felt unable to express myself in my real life and instead communicated my feelings to the world through what felt like deeply personal, artsy videos. When I realised my work made a difference to other people’s lives I started advocating for mental health and LGBT issues, similar to how Yuumei started her voice to advocate for environmental issues.
Yuumei started using her art for activism for the first time in 2006 when a county in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province killed 50,000 dogs in a crackdown on rabies. She made an activist drawing called “Selfish” about animal cruelty, which became a turning point for her. After receiving incredibly positive feedback from the DeviantArt community she realised that her art could send out a message and leave an impact on the world. As a result, she started posting more art containing environmental themes in an attempt to bring awareness to oil spills, shark finning and climate change, amongst other themes.
Yuumei graduated as valedictorian from her high school and went to UC Berkeley with the intention to major in Biology and Environmental Science as she loves the subjects and advocates strongly for climate change. At the start of her degree, she took a lot of environmental science classes. Her professor mentioned that data has already been collected to prove that climate change is happening but that the biggest challenge is to convince people that it’s true. After her first year, Yuumei decided to switch from science to art, feeling like she “could make a bigger impact about the environment as an artist than as an environmental scientist.”
Unsurprisingly, she became known for her activism for climate change and shares some of her work under the hashtag #ExtinctionRebellion, which stands for a global environmental movement that wishes to compel government action. “What [are] the lengths humanity will go to destroy and protect nature?” Yuumei writes under her artwork “Revive,” pictured below.
In her artwork “Countdown,” she portrays how time in our effort to stop climate change is running out through the drawing of an hourglass. The upper part shows two ice bears standing on a melting piece of ice. A drop falls to the bottom of the hourglass where the materialistic belongings and cities of humanity have slowly started sinking in water. “Change is not waiting for the scientists and government to come up with the solution, change starts with the little things we can do every day,” Yuumei writes.
In a STEM-dominated world where the humanities continue to be questioned, it’s incredibly important to recognise that art has value and is necessary to help bring along imperative change. Science and numbers often don’t mean much to people. In order to make others take climate change seriously, people need to be touched by a more personal message. Yuumei is bringing along this change with her artwork and proves that art truly can make a difference.