Sulu Series: Archipelago

Yee Ilann engages with the shared history and territorial boundaries of the Sulu archipelago in her 2005 photographic series, Sulu Stories.  Made up of hundreds of coral and volcanic islands between Borneo in Malaysia and Mindanao in the Philippines, the Sulu archipelago was part of a large Muslim sultanate in the mid-15^th century linked by culture, economic ties, and cross-island migration. Its more recent history, however, as a remote territory of the Philippines has been tinged with political conflict and economic uncertainty.  

The photographic series is an exploration of her own personal connections to this archipelago, its long history and shared horizon with Sabah, her homeland. Sulu Stories was also influenced by Yee's continued interest in the territorial disputes between the Philippines and Malaysia over the island of Sabah since the 1960s. Digitally manipulating archival images of Sabah and the Philippines, Yee creates an imagined world that predates modern state boundaries.

In Sulu Stories: The Archipelago, she uses the coastline of Sabah as physical markers within a watery world where borders, time, and history seem to shift and dissolve. In this painterly image, a lone figure on a horse gazes at the ambiguous seascape that surrounds him. Here, the horizon line becomes a fluid border from which the preliminary idea of a Southeast Asian identity might even be imagined.