Art Beats Festival 24

The Beauty and Ugliness (Peggy Yiu)

Taken on Canon EOS M50 mark ii

Artwork Description

Photo 2, 3 and 4 were both taken near Lancaster canal. Photo 2 is about the swan and baby swans swimming in the canal, there is two ducks behind them. Photo 3 is about the sheep’s family. Photo 4 is about the reflection of the canal 

Artist Statement

As the title mentions, “When we nurture, we grow.”  Animals will continue to reproduce for the next generation and this is the law of nature.  The baby swans and sheep in the picture also grow under the nurture and care of their parents.  When we see those animals interacting, we think they are cute, or it is amazing when we see these **ordinary stones built into a meaningful stone tower**.  Since everyone thinks nature is beautiful, why people still destroy it?  Because humans are ugly.  Human beings tend to only pay attention to the beautiful scenery in front of them and ignore the ugliness hidden behind it.  Just like picture 4, the river surface reflects the blue sky and white clouds like a mirror.  Meanwhile, it also reflects the plastic box that was casually dropped by humans.  Most people may only focus on the sky reflected on the lake and but not the plastic box because you need to zoom in on that photo to see it.  These 4 pictures all reflect the vitality and beauty of nature.  But in fact, no one will think about or care about the ugliness behind it. For example, no one will think that building a stone tower can be considered as a destruction of nature. This is human nature. Since the beauty of nature is obvious to all of us, why do humans continue to destroy the environment? We always say “Humans and nature systems co-exit”. Since nature brings us beautiful scenery, should humans be aware of protecting this ecology?  
**pile up stones and make a stone tower is a culture in Korea. The higher the stone tower is, the easier it is for wishes to come. 

Peggy Pui Kwan Yiu

I am Peggy Yiu, a first-year undergraduate student doing film and sociology in Lancaster University and come from Hong Kong. I am not a professional photographer and I didn’t learn any skills in photography. However, when you capture some amazing movements, you will feel successful. So, this became my motivation for photography. I mainly take photos of animals, sunsets and landscapes. I think that as a photographer, in addition to capturing the beautiful moments, we also capture the bad things in the world. The point of being a photographer is to tell everyone the good and bad of the world. I hope everyone will not only focus on the beauty on the surface, but also pay attention to the ugliness on the inside.