Hanna Moon and Joyce Ng on making space for an Asian perspective in photography

“You have to be quite bold to talk about race in a museum context, so I think it’s really good that Somerset House is showing perspectives from different parts of the world,” asserts Hanna Moon, the Korean-born, London-based photographer whose work informs half of a new exhibition entitled, English as a Second Language. “It can sometimes feel like the movement for diversity is only focused on one race. We are not black, and that’s often what is considered ‘diversity’.”

The criticism is not unjustified and lends itself to a broader new wave gaining traction in fashion and the creative arts, specifically within the UK, that acknowledges a wider pool of participants including those with South and East Asian heritage: extending but not limited to fashion designers such as Supriya Lele, Rahemur Rahman and A Sai Ta – as well as New York label Commission – and in photography Moon, and her co-exhibitor, Joyce Ng.

“I think I started using the abbreviation ‘ESL’ as a quick comeback excuse for misinterpreting anything in English. I grew up going to schools where speaking my Chinese mother tongue is against school rules. At 27, I’m still embarrassed that both my English and Chinese is diluted and never 100 percent correctly used,” says Ng, who was born in Hong Kong, responding to the moniker she and Moon chose for the show. “In primary and secondary school, there was a small number of classmates who left Mandarin/French class for ESL. It was an unspoken thing that everyone was sensitive to not embarrass those attendants of. I now look at it completely differently. It’s an asset to have both channels of languages as ongoing streams of consciousness in our brains when it comes to living and working.”

The exhibition, housed in the space’s South Wing, is a bold illustration of contemporary photography, as befits two graduates of Central Saint Martins (the pair initially met studying Fashion Communication). Comprised of three rooms, the tour starts with specifically commissioned work by Moon that pops from deep red and blue walls, before dancing into a lighter arena where Joyce’s new commissions are highlighted with borders of bright orange, and concludes with a selection of their respective work, both private and published pieces, alongside a ‘making of’ style video by Raf Fellner. Underlining the ‘lost in translation’ tag at the show’s core, exhibition notes throughout are arranged on contrasting grey and white boards with two sets of fonts, a playful reference to the use of subtitles, and elsewhere clothing credits accompany each image, mirroring the pair’s magazine work.

Curated by Shonagh Marshall, whom both photographers met as part of a previous photography project, Posturing, the exhibition was born from a desire to platform themes that had begun percolating in 2017. “There is a huge influx of Asian students in Western universities, a product of increased globalisation, how will this begin to shift our thinking – in this case aesthetically – but also in terms of mathematics, science, literature?” asks Marshall. From the initial conversations, the aforementioned commissions began: two bodies of work created in direct response to the physical exhibition space, and all the history that frames it.

“I love a tight brief,” enthuses Ng. “I had the idea of capturing different characters journeying to Somerset House, inspired by the novel Journey to the West. I took off at Somerset House, sending a postcard home to parents that I’m ‘Safe in London!’ and brought in a Chinese stereotypical element to its architecture.” Loosely basing herself in the grounds for six weeks, she cast models from the visitors and community that she met on site. “Street casting is an important element of my work, it forces my introvert self to fake confidence and speak to strangers. I would meet people, ask them about their background, or visit them at home. I’d build a story with that, or come in with my own story, merging the two worlds.”

In Moon’s case, close friends were the subject of her lens, as she explains: “I tried to produce work I think best represents me and my practice and took time to think about how best to connect the history of Somerset House with fashion and my approach to photography. My idea was to subvert the brief and invade Somerset House, shooting images of my two muses Moffy and Heejin in different locations at night.” In practice this meant marrying classical portraiture with personal symbols such as facemasks and wedding dresses; reclining nudes in ticket halls, and discreet staff members in shot.

“It’s easy to group us under the Asian category,” Joyce advises instinctively, “Hanna and I are very different, hence the joke to call it English as a Second Language. The way we interpret language and symbols sometimes separate us on another dimension of thoughts, as opposed to someone who grows up in a mono-dialect world. I grew up looking at Olay and SK-II adverts, with either Asian celebrities or models with “white features” or pale, mixed-raced beauties front the TV and billboards. This flooding of commercial and ‘non-highbrow images’ informs my visual language today and without this background, I wouldn’t have the questions I want to raise and try to answer through my photography.”

The proximity between two cultures and redefinition of ‘otherness’ is similarly celebrated by Moon, who grew up seeing and listening to “completely different things to people here – art, music, pop culture and so on. I think having a different cultural background is a huge advantage for me, people are naturally intrigued to see what new things we can offer that they haven’t experienced or seen before,” she suggests. Working within the creative industry has only further encouraged her appreciation of her Korean background she adds, highlighting that identity in the visual language she creates.

“It doesn’t necessarily suggest a new way to look at the world,” Marshall decides of a show that’s as rich in aesthetics as it is in dialogue, “but it pokes at the zeitgeist, framing social issues such as race, sexuality, gender in a new way. I have learned so much from Hanna and Joyce, and I am so grateful for their generosity in sharing with me their view of the world.”

See more from the exhibition below:

Hanna Moon & Joyce Ng: English as a Second Language runs through to 28 April 2019 at Somerset House, London.

All images courtesy of the artists and Somerset House.