Born 1986, Shanghai, China
Lives and works in Shanghai; Belgrade, Serbia; and Melbourne, Australia

Hu Yun is fascinated by the ways migration has shaped specific localities, producing variances in dialect and approaches to transliteration. Based in Melbourne during 2020 and 2021, he focused his research on the history of mining, which has played in a significant role in Australia’s engagements with China, from the migration of Cantonese labourers working in the goldfields of the nineteenth century, to the current centrality of mineral resources to diplomatic and trade relations. It is not mine to give, nor yours to take includes two stunning scrolls that bring together science, art and nature. Drawing on cutting-edge research being undertaken at the University of Queensland into processes of ‘Phyto-rehabilitation’ — in which ‘super plants’ are used to extract mineral trace elements from soil — Hu Yun’s watercolours of the super plants were made using specially developed pigments, created from the very minerals the plants extract, and feature nature prints made on historic Chinese dig sites in Victoria. The second scroll — a collaborative work with UQ ecophysiologist Dr Antony van der Ent — shows colour-coded visualisations of the plants’ chemical distribution streams.

_{Supported by the National Foundation for Australia-China Relations.}