William Yang: Six Decades of LGBTQ Photography and a Family Murder Mystery

The TarraWarra Museum of Art’s exhibition *Inside the Mirage* (running until 1 November) presents seven of Yang’s annotated photographs that trace the 1922 killing of his uncle, William Fang Yuen, on a Far North Queensland farm. Court records reveal the uncle was shot after an argument with a white employee over farm accounts; the employee was later acquitted, a verdict many believed was racially motivated. Yang uses the images and transcripts to illustrate how the murder shaped his mother’s determination to raise her children “more Australian than the Australians” and to highlight the lingering impact of suppressed ethnicity on his own identity.

The Guardian

Since arriving in Sydney in the late 1960s, Yang has taken between 500,000 and 1 million photographs, documenting the city’s LGBTQ+ community through the 1970s club scene, the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s-1990s, and the 2017 marriage plebiscite. The State Library of New South Wales has acquired roughly 50,000 negatives from the 1970s and is negotiating access to his 1980s-1990s work, which Yang is currently digitising to prevent “dusty, unsorted piles” from consigning his images to oblivion. He is also preparing a nude study titled *The Male Body*.

The Guardian

Yang describes the 1970s as a moment when the gay community, previously “invisible for thousands of years,” seized the chance to be photographed, a shift he believes helped secure broader legal rights. While he celebrated the 2017 marriage plebiscite as “a huge victory” and a cultural shift, he warns that rising right-wing politics, exemplified by figures such as Pauline Hanson, threaten that progress. Nonetheless, he stresses Australia’s relative freedom of expression as a protective factor.

The Guardian

• “This verdict upset the Chinese at the time,” — William Yang — William Yang, photographer

The Guardian

• “So many photographers leave their negatives in a dusty, unsorted pile,” — William Yang — William Yang, photographer

The Guardian

• “You could eat the cream off him,” — William Yang — William Yang, photographer

The Guardian

• “Remember when I felt I had not fulfilled my destiny?” — William Yang — William Yang, photographer

The Guardian

Yang’s ongoing archival project not only preserves a visual record of Australia’s LGBTQ+ history but also re-examines his family’s past, offering a layered narrative of personal and communal resilience. The exhibition and his digitisation efforts ensure that both the marginalized gay community and the hidden story of his uncle’s death remain visible for future generations.

William Yang Reflects on Six Decades of LGBTQ+ Photography