How Do You Keep Your Heart Open? (For Susan)

How Do You Keep Your Heart Open? (For Susan), Christine Wong Yap x For Freedoms.

 

With community and care running throughout her practice, Christine Wong Yap works towards a universal homecoming for all who encounter her art.

How Do You Keep Your Heart Open? (For Susan) is an archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm paper, hand-embellished with fine graphite powder and spot-colour screenprint layers. Prints from the edition of 25 are individually signed, dated and numbered.

The namesake question exists at the core of Yap’s practice. “To keep one’s heart open is to embrace a mindset of abundance, rather than a mindset of scarcity; to opt for connection and generosity, rather than self-preservation; and to work towards belonging, rather than othering.”

Created as a tribute to the life and legacy of the artist’s late friend Susan O’Malley, the work — realised as a pencil drawing with the telltale marks of a preparatory sketch — intentionally retains a sense of being in progress, and of continual exploration.

For Freedoms

Launching as part of a wider collaboration between Avant Arte and artist-run collective For Freedoms, the edition of 25 reprises Yap’ billboard design for the organisation’s 2020 Awakening Campaign. To find out more about the collaboration and an accompanying edition by Hank Willis Thomas, click here.

 

Live across London from Monday 27th September, click here to discover the campaign.

Original artwork courtesy of For Freedoms and Unfinished. For more details on Christine's billboard click here, and for more on For Freedoms, click here.