Learning another way: an attempt to expand the 'given-to-be-seen' of masculinity in Australia

Western photographic representations of Chinese men have symbolically castrated their subjects (Richard Fung) by excluding them from the ‘given to be seen’ – the shared visual repertoire of images through which masculinity is culturally constructed (David Eng). This is not a simple numerical imbalance: to expand the given to be seen, there is a need for new conceptual approaches for photography, audience reception and critical interpretation, and this project and exegesis explored the Wen/Wu dyad of Chinese masculinity offered in the work of Kam Louie. The project was an exhibition at Federation Square in Melbourne (25 January to 17 February, 2011) featuring larger than life-size images of white and Asian men in different sporting, occupational and subcultural uniforms. The Wen/Wu dyad is explored in relation to this project, an earlier group exhibition of Asian photographers of men, curated by the author and titled “Men Like Me” (2008), and Anne Zahalka’s “Bondi: Playground of the Pacific” (1989). As Kobena Mercer has argued in relation to Robert Mapplethorpe, white artists seeking to represent the Other assume certain risks and a responsibility toward their subjects and practice, and these are considered as well.