born Apr.1994 in Guangzhou, China. It is said that during mom's pregnancy, she intended to listen to more Mozart’s music as yaoyao's prenatal education. But she also unintendedly watched a lot of Hong Kong-produced ghost/zombie gambling/casino films. Yaoyao started playing the piano at age 4½, starting with Beethoven, Choppin, and J.S.Bach.
Mango allergy discovered at age 6. At third-grade primary school, “ Yu-Yaoyao (余瑶瑶)” was renamed to“ YuYao-yao（余姚瑶）”. YU (余) is her father’s family name, YAO (姚) is her mother’s family name. yao (瑶) is her actual given name -- stands for uncarved raw jade in the rough. She then named herself Amber as her first English name. During secondary school, yaoyao bumped into mangoes again. She thought her allergy had gone after all those years so she ate one, and a few more...one small mistake, resulted in miserable Puk Gaai.
In the Affiliated High School of SCNU, she was the president of the student photography club. She also started to practise flute. 2012, enrolled in School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. She played drum in her friend's band. In 2013, she made a short autobiographical documentary focusing on post-adolescent. In 2015, her portraiture work Container was selected by Chinese Photographers Association in the “Daily-observation” 20 young Asian photographer exhibitions. In the same year, she went to the Academy of Fine Art in Prague(Czech Republic) as an exchange student. A Hungarian guy asked her if her English name was Ember coz in Hungarian that means “Human”. So she changed it to Ember to fit the story.
She graduated in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in Arts and Sciences (New Media). 2016 - 2017 she was in Beijing, worked as a script supervisor, production assistant, and Chinese-English subtitle translator for the late director and writer HU Bo (pen name HU Qian)'s feature film An Elephant Sitting Still. After HU’s death, her memorial writing was included in a separate publication for the film. In the same period, she made artworks The Kiss, a small message, a tiny faith, wrote haikus, short poems, etc.
She moved to the UK in 2018 to pursue a master’s degree in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design, UAL. She brushed her teeth at the MA show -- the only chance we've got to self-clean our skeletons while we are still alive.
In autumn 2019, funded by British Arts Council, she participated in an Erasmus+ artist residency project in Georgia launched by curator, educator Irena Popiashvili and Patricia Ellis. Her AIR works Shortboard, Standing Trap, Gaacheret, TBC News, were shown at the Window Project in Tbilisi and the VA[A]DS academic space at Tbilisi Free University. On the anniversary day of HU Bo’s death, Google Maps pointed out a place named "Golden Fleece boarding site". Yaoyao was led to the Tbilisi sea in huge shock. She never told Google that HU Bo's An Elephant Sitting Still was firstly named Golden Fleece. LOL.
Her original plan was to continue her practice and research in Georgia. Develop her performance piece Kartlis Deda (Mother of Georgia) and her Ph.D. proposal (keywords: cross-media narrative and entertainment; the possibility of decentralization of gaze; machine visual study and its psychoanalysis; creative urban ecology; new media art; art on blockchain; virtual/actual film production in post-epidemic era). In the game-changing 2020, she returned to China and now lives and works in the Fanshun area.
Due to her teaching role in Shunde Polytechnic, a series of programs have been implemented such as organizing art education and cultural activities in Guangdong's rural area, bringing traditional Cantonese opera performances to Yangjiang City, etc. Therefore, “Shunde studies”, “Yangjiang studies” became two of her practice and research anchor points.
2021, wrote A He and The woman who stole wine, developing a Shura trilogy project. She discovers her passion for soft-boiled eggs, berries, catching Pokemon and aspire to be a dinner-free/mopping-free mortal. Guided by the spirit of Dionysus, she developed a common interest in the “Locality of beer” with her friends Simba & Turtle. They founded and managed Guangzhou-based beer brand “Martin Brewing”, and made a special joint product for the feature film “Drop Your Cat” ( directed by WU Weifeng, produced by QIAN Yini ). Their vision is to make for consuming, selling for rational drinking.
Recently, involved in a loose collaboration with On Kino & On Analog, “Second-floor” art institution.
Meanwhile, unofficially working on the movie “Colors of comedy,” which was written by HU Bo (Hu Qian). Details remain secret. Working for a ghost for the public good.
One of the reasons why there has been no solo exhibition is that her vision of brushing the curators’ teeth at the opening has not yet been met.
Master Bruce LEE had been lived in Shunde. Once upon a time, he said “Be water”. One part of yaoyao or oayoay jumps among Kvass, Guevara and Godzilla, another part jumps between CAI Ming/Tsai Ming-liang, CAI Guo-qing/CAI Guo-qiang; The rest jumps among Bloody Mary, Virgin Mary and Super Mario. Anyway, thanks to Shunde’s traditional strength. One-shot, one kill. Same same ingredient, plenty ways to eat. For further conversation, collaboration and sponsorship, please contact: yu.yaoyao@outlook.com