Best-known and yet too often narrowed down to the sole prestigious titles of Academy Award Winner for Art Direction and BAFTA winner for Costume Design on Ang Lee’s martial art film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hong Kong artist Tim Yip has in reality produced a complex body of works encompassing a much broader scope than the confines of all-too-glamorous Hollywood.  

Originally graduating from Hong Kong Polytechnic with a degree in photography, Tim Yip’s creativity has not only graced the world of cinema but has indeed always freely crossed over to the stage and back, through contemporary art, to photography, film and fashion, thus carving a highly prolific path across the arts acknowledged worldwide since his first cinematic achievement in 1986 for A Better Tomorrow directed by John Woo. 

Over the last couple of years though, Yip has gone back to his cinematic roots as a filmmaker with his long-running project, baptised : LOVE INFITINITY, a title as broad as its substance reaches in an ambitious filmic fresco, semi-documentary and semi-fiction, which has kept him obsessively busy with the poetic archival of extraordinary stories across the ‘psychogeography’ of bold creatives, through the lens of a filmmaking approach referred as “Primitive Film”. This production style pairs down to the director and his camera with only a small supporting crew to produce a narrative with a naive point of view, purposely rejecting cinematic sophistications in order to privilege a form of directness resembling an infant’s perspective. 

The genesis to this odyssey bloomed out of the fateful encounter facilitated 18 years ago by fairy godmother of the arts Diane Pernet who introduced Yip to Mei Hui Liu, the Taiwanese-born artist, designer, and talent scout, also known as “East London’s Andy”. Yip thus found in Liu his faithful creative producer, as well as a guardian to the keys which opened him the gates of Britain’s cultural hub and its iconic makers with the likes of Gilbert & George, Andrew Logan and Vivienne Westwood, alongside the new generation of one-of-a-kind Londoners, such as The Real Pandemonia, or Daniel Lismore, who was actually Yip’s first muse for LOVE INFINITY. 

It is surrounded by those very artists, that Yip has been a guest of Diane Pernet for this year’s sweet sixteen of her famed festival, A SHADED VIEW ON FASHION FILM, to screen and discuss the third volume of LOVE INFINITY, subtitled HALF HUMAN HALF GHOST. Withdrawing behind striking humility, Yip has let the work be introduced to the audience I was a part of by LOVE INFINITY’s poetic subjects themselves: Daniel Lismore, and Pandemonia, the latter offering a reading of Yip’s creative statement delivered with a soothingly poised voice, softly escaping through her pair of red lips cut-out of latex: “LOVE INFINITY celebrates the artists who can live in their own universe and find their true hearts. It takes me years of my time to understand and discover the different private wonderlands. East London is the beginning of the journey to escape our flattened world. (Tim Yip)”.

Experiencing this screening in the flesh in Paris, where LOVE INFINITY starts now deploying its filmic tentacles, marked one of the highlights of my lucky presence at ASVOFF this year again, which has left me uplifted and artistically nurtured, both as an attendee but also part-taker in the festival. For the second consecutive year, my partner Kaitsauka and I have been indeed blessed by Diane Pernet’s generosity, who put trust in us to honour the precious gifts of time and space granted to our creativity to be showcased within the exquisite context of ASVOFF, which more than an outstandingly curated film festival is a platform for creative minds to meet, connect and inspire one another. It is with the same gratitude that we give thanks for Mei Hui Liu’s trust and generosity of her friendship this year, thanks to whom we have been introduced to Tim Yip through the course of a filmed encounter, which spontaneously took place at our Paris home studio as I slipped on for the first time the Giger-inspired armour designed by Kaitsauka for my performance during ASVOFF’s awards ceremony that evening. 

Integrating the LOVE INFINITY series is a very humbling gift that myself and my partner shall cherish with a respect of circumstance. To have indeed an artist of Tim Yip’s caliber take even the slightest interest in what a young head full of dreams struggles to deliver into our tortured world is an acknowledgment far beyond what I could ever imagine. On this day I give thanks for the kindness and empathy with which Tim Yip, has greeted my work into the constellation of LOVE INFINITY. And beyond the appreciation I have for his words ensuing below, my biggest take away from our connection was the awe-inspiring humility with which he passionately leads his artistic investigation into the deepest meanders of human souls in search of universal truth.

“Aidan Amore @__aidanamore__ , an Italian-born artist based in Paris, represents the late Millennial generation with a multifaceted identity as an #ActorPerformer, #ArtistCreator, and #SingerSongwriter. Featured in cultural outlets like Les Inrockuptibles, Amore defies traditional labels, describing himself as a ”creator“ on a mission to infiltrate mainstream media and popularise cutting-edge scientific insights about the global climate crisis. 

We are fortunate to encounter talented young individuals like him, brimming with imagination and unique perspectives on the future, expressed powerfully through their work. (Tim Yip, director of LOVE INFINITY)