Yky

I do not like to introduce myself as an artist as long as we do not agree on what is an object of art and on what is meant by 'artistic approach'. Personally, I pay much more interest in artistic approaches than to what is produced as the object of art. This being said, if I have to put myself in a box, I choose citizen artist.

My interest in urban resilience started when I understood the meaning of those two words in 2016, at Réver(cités), a conference/exhibition organized by the Cité de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris. It was the first time I heard about urban resilience and it has been a real shock to realize all the threats and challenges we face as urban citizens. But this meant also that the majority of my fellow urban citizens ignored those challenges, as I did. How could I help?

I am not an expert. The only thing I knew was using a camera and a computer. This was the starting point of www.resi-city.com which you should see before everything as a way to better inform non-expert citizens. I started this website in Jan 2018 after three months spent in libraries and online to better understand the concept. My inspiration comes from expert publications.

My photographic works make use of a well-known argentic paper property: to darken when exposed to light. It shows two photographic stages for a given urban space impacted by a hazard occurrence. One is stable. The other will darken unpredictably, highlighting the challenges raised by the urban space resilience level. I hope this work enables us to build the link between experts and non-experts urban citizens.

My works on disasters such as earthquakes and flooding are currently showcased by the World Bank in Washington DC for the Art of Resilience exhibition.

Yky's ClimateCultures posts

The Art of Reimagining Managed Retreat

23rd August 2021

Artist Yky shares ideas and artworks he presented to an international conference addressing scientific, social, and governance issues around 'managed retreat' -- and how artists need to engage with pedagogy to contextualize and reimagine responses to climate change. Read More

A Personal History of the Anthropocene – Three Objects #10

23rd January 2020

Citizen artist Yky offers three objects that explore Anthropocene themes of our relationship with time and the world and the responsibility that we hold in our own hands, using a common photographic presentation to help make these visible. Read More

Urban Resilience? Art, the Missing Link

14th December 2019

Citizen Artist Yky explores urban resilience and the importance of building joint commitments by experts and artists to improve our understanding of this concept in 'citizen science' and other approaches to empower citizens in planning for the future. Read More