"long story short"
> Exhibition & Vernissage
The Alliance Française is delighted to host “long story short” by Christina Yao.
long story short investigates the ongoing negotiation of power, trust, and vulnerability within intimate relationships.
I construct staged photographs that feel both authentic and entirely fictional, with scenes built from fragments of shared experiences and my own relational hesitations. These images become a site where the boundaries of intimacy are tested, exploring the tension between what is performed for the lens and what is instinctively revealed. What is long or short, complete or unresolved, is never fixed. It shifts with memory and time, changing as we return to a relationship from a different perspective. In these private spaces, connection unfolds as something remembered, imagined, and performed, shaped by the desire to be seen and the resistance to full exposure. Even in closeness, moments of distance remain, where feelings go unspoken and loneliness exists alongside connection.
About Christina Yao
Christina Yao is a China-born, Calgary-based artist working in photography, video, and installation. Drawing from her experience living across the U.S., Colombia, and Canada, she explores relationships, identity, and place through a cross-cultural lens. Yao holds a Bachelor of Design in Photography (with Distinction) from the Alberta University of the Arts. She was shortlisted for the Royal Photographic Society International Photography Exhibition 167 (2026), and is a 2025 Critical Mass Top 200 finalist and a 2024 LensCulture Portrait Awards finalist. Her work was featured in the Emerging Photographers Showcase at the 2024 Exposure Photography Festival. Her work has been presented internationally at Sotheby’s Institute of Art (New York) and ASC Studio (London, UK), and at Contemporary Calgary, The Marion Nicoll Gallery, TRUCK Contemporary Art, Stride Gallery, cSPACE, The Bows, and Werklund Centre.
Website: www.christina-yao.com
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Date: Friday, May 8th to Monday, June 1st -
Time: 6:15 PM -
Location: Alliance Française Library -
Admission: Free
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