John Young: The History Projects

History as unfinished business--a definitive guide for an artist’s recent practice

Between 2005 and 2019, Hong Kong-born Australian artist John Young Zerunge created eleven art series that he called ＂The History Projects.＂ This book is a critical guide to this expansive body of artworks, which explore diasporic memory, transcultural identity, and what Young describes as an ＂ethical responsibility＂ toward the past. Featuring more than four hundred images and a wide variety of texts--including new essays and interviews, key republished articles, poetry, artist’s reflections, and diary pages--this book is a definitive reference for Young’s transformative recent practice and its urgent reckoning with history as unfinished business.

Olivier Krischer is a historian and curator of modern and contemporary art from East Asia and its diasporas, with a particular interest in photomedia. His recent curatorial projects include Wei Leng Tay-Abridge and Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s-80s Taiwan (co-curated with Shuxia Chen), from which he is developing two edited books. Olivier is a lecturer in curating and cultural leadership at the University of New South Wales and in Asian art history at the National Art School. Contributors: Carolyn Barnes, Thomas J. Berghuis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Brian Castro, John Clark, Matt Cox, Marc Glöde, Pei Pei He, Claire Hielscher, Wolfgang Huber, Jacquline Lo, Sophie Loy-Wilson, Jennifer Mackenzie, Venita Poblocki, Nadia Rhook, Claire Roberts, Aaron Seeto, Anette Simojoki, Mikala Tai, Cyrus Tang, Caroline Turner, Sylvia D. Volz, and Jen Webb