Thank You For Playing With Me
Shot over three years from 2019 to 2022, Thank You For Playing With Me by Yolanda Y. Liou is an intimate look at two plus-size models, Enam Ewura Adjoa Asiama and Vanessa Russell. Liou first came across Asiama’s Instagram in 2019 and was blown away by her confidence and charisma. It was the type of confidence that Liou struggled to have about her own body due to her upbringing in Taiwan. “Growing up in Taiwan, I was consistently exposed to the relentless beauty standards that prioritised being skinny... This obsession led me to believe that I was never beautiful enough, and consequently, I felt unworthy of love. I constantly sought ways to conform, believing that only then would I be accepted and appreciated.” Liou’s main aim with this photo book is to help people embrace their individuality.
Yolanda Y. Liou (°1990) is a photographer and moving image maker based in London and Brighton, working with analogue film, digital and collage. Her work focuses on connection and to offer a broader spectrum of representation and empower people to embrace their uniqueness. Yolanda’s work has been published in Nowness, Dazed, i-D, Creative Review amongst others. In 2020 she was awarded third prize in the prestigious Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. She has exhibited her photography in Shanghai, LA and the National Portrait Gallery, UK and has had film screenings internationally. In 2023, Yolanda shot the high profile Body Stories campaign for ITV’s Loose Women, celebrating body diversity and the importance of representation.
"Her work seeks to create a safe space for women of different body types in a world that seeks to punish them. By flipping the narrative, the photographer artfully and courageously shows that in a culture that engenders self-loathing on the path to ‘perfection’ – nothing tastes as good as radical self-acceptance." - Lydia Figes, i-D