Your work 'Portrait: Selection Committee for the Arts Council Collection' was a proposal to photograph the current Arts Council selection committee, what is the context for this piece of work?

CY- At the time I produced the photograph for the Arts Council in 1994, I had started out curating shows with friends in disused spaces in the Docklands. I remember for the first show we did, which was called 'The Clove Building', I proposed to photograph the people who ran the building. Right from the beginning I remember feeling the atmosphere I was leaving college in was not going to make it easy for an artist to show work. So, it seemed to me that we had to try and get into all these little places and in order to do that you really had to understand how they worked. This was all connected to the LDDC (London Docklands Development Committee) and I photographed the head of that. By making the process of negotiation with institutions the subject of my work, I was able to develop my interest in investigating structures of power both within the photographic image and outside it.

At Goldsmiths I had already begun to look at issues of power, how certain mechanisms worked and how things happened. After that I photographed one of the directors of Canary Wharf group because we were having an exhibition in the unlet shops at the bottom of the tower. With that exhibition (with Katherine Clarke, Tania Kovats and Caroline Russell) we had a conference with David Batchelor and Anne-Marie Francis.

After that I was offered a show at Laura Genillard, a commercial gallery (1994). I photographed 'the artist', 'the gallerist', 'the critic' and 'the curator' and then at Exhibit A at the Serpentine Gallery (1994) I photographed the Directors, Julia Peyton-Jones and Andrea Schlieker. It was after this point that the Arts Council approached me to buy a work and I don't think they had often been in a position of asking to buy a work and then the artist saying 'could I do this?'.

What do you remember about putting together the proposal to take the photograph?

CY - I remember some of the Arts Council selectors coming around to my studio already when I was at Goldsmiths and I think they came over because they were visiting someone else in the studio complex and they also came to see me. I think Isobel came that time with Andrew Nairne. Then as I remember it the second time they approached me, as they decided to purchase a work.

I remember the second time they said they wanted to pay me a studio visit and I suggested a group portrait because it seemed appropriate for the committee of a public body. I wanted to take the photograph at the Hayward and did lots of studies of the place. The Modernist architecture of the Hayward Gallery seemed the right setting for the portrait, as both the gallery and the Arts Council Collection were set up with a particular vision. It was really difficult because I hadn't ever photographed six people before. I remember being really scared and it was quite intimidating, not that they were intimidating people.

All of my portraits are completely set up and the architecture is as important, its as much to do with the place as well as the people. I tried to frame the Arts Council portrait in a way that would reference modernist painting, so I had this third blue on one image and two thirds blue on the other. I was trying to position them all and before hand I knew all of their heights, so I had already worked out how I wanted to position them. The most difficult thing was the light that was flooding in through the windows that day. It completely fogged them out, I knew I couldn't re-shoot it because even if they agreed I knew the light was gone. I remember it was really hard to position them all, as they needed to stay very still in the shot. They needed to not move between the positive shot and the blue negative one.

I remember getting all the shots back and everyone was quite fogged, but I thought that was quite beautiful and I ended up by building up the image with layers of different shots. I think there were about three or four layers in each image. It was really hard because I was putting them all together by hand and you have to register each layer and hold them while you put down the tape to fix them together.

The beginning of the your relationship with the Arts Council Collection stretches back to the time when Isobel and Andrew paid you a visit in your studio at Goldsmiths, to what extent does your work enable that relationship to continue?

CY - It was really important that photographing the Arts Council was a public body because that was something that I had not done then. After that I finished the body of work because I had a private gallery and public body and realised there was a danger that I could go on doing it forever. On the one hand continuing it may have produced an incredible document, but on the other it may have just started to become formulaic.

I think through doing the work I became much more friendly with the people, which may not have happened if it was a straight sale. It helped to build a relationship. I didn't know Adrian Searle before and I cant remember if I knew Greg Hilty or not, I think that may have been how we met and since then he has been really wonderful and surportive to my work. Andrew Naine who came to the first meeting has followed my work really closely all the time since. I think what you know with having works in the Arts Council Collection is that they are going to be loved.

Your work does something unique for the Collection in terms of registering the process through which it comes into being. Your proposal draws a comparison between the process of framing and selection inherent within the photographic image and also with selecting works to be purchased for a collection or institution, what is the relationship between artist and subject in your portraits?

CY - I remember with all the portraits I had taken I was thinking about this reciprocation and the symbiotic relationship between me and the subjects. So with the Canary Wharf director I needed him in terms of his support to do the exhibition and he wanted his image to be there and someone to make it. With the selectors I was very aware of them selecting me and me selecting them and then selecting the composition and the poses. The process of selection began to work both ways so it was not just me being selected by them, they also had to go through a process of selection. There was a kind of answering back if you like, to mirror what they were doing, and yes, a framing of each other.

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