SPECIAL EDITION - Yolanda Y. Liou - Thank You For Playing With Me

“Thank You For Playing With Me” dives into researching the concept of modern beauty, documenting portraits of Enam Ewura Adjoa Asiama and Vanessa Russell from 2019 to 2022.
This book is a intimate record of that journey.

The expectation of being skinny as the standard is relentless in Asian beauty culture. I’ve experienced the stress of this since a very young age. In 2019, when I was thinking about this body image topic again, I came across Enam’s Instagram profile. I was taken by her confidence and charisma.

Suddenly it clicked; I’m a photographer, I create images. Images don’t create me.

I collaborated with Enam and Vanessa over the next three years, we went on the journey of transformation personally and collectively, finding our own foot in the world, career changes and moving cities, grieving the lost ones and celebrating the new life - sisterhood, womanhood and motherhood.

It's a call for us all to play, to be human, and to celebrate the unique beauty that resides within each of us."

Special edition
Book + signed/numbered print.
Edition of 50.
Size: 240 x 165 mm (includes 5 mm white border).

Articles
i-D
Publico P3 - Thank You For Playing With Me
Fisheye
It's Nice That
British Journal of Photography
Dazed
Nowness

Award
2020 National Portrait's Gallery Taylor Wessing Prize
2019 Creative Review Photography Annual - Honourable Mention

www.yolandaliou.com