ARTIST STATEMENT 

The African diaspora, European colonialism, and Chinese migration shape significant parts of my origin story. I was born in Manchester, Jamaica, to a Chinese-Jamaican father and an Afro-Jamaican mother. The ancestral convergence in Jamaica of slavers, enslaved Africans, and migrant workers, followed by my family’s immigration to the United States informs my artistic practice. 

 

Having immigrated to the U.S. with my family at an early age, my recollections of home in the post-colonial Caribbean existed when the Jamaican government’s changeover resulted in a most turbulent era. The economic upheaval and threats by the IMF International Monetary Fund stifled the autonomy of middle-class Jamaicans living there.  The transition of power between the parties from the democratic socialist’s Peoples National Party (PNP) led by Michael Manly to the hands of the conservative Jamaica Labor Party, represented by Edward Seaga in the 1980s included widespread layoffs met with catastrophic natural disasters which largely shaped my parent’s decision to migrate to the United States.  

 

My early childhood in central and western Jamaica existed at the edges of becoming globalized with mainstream Western culture; the influence of media, pop culture, and all things foreign, American, mostly took precedence. We listened to American country music on almost weekly trips to the rural countryside, where nature was idyllic and raw. There, my people owned and worked on farms and businesses that once flourished. This version of an idyllic Jamaica no longer exists. My work often aims to celebrate Jamaican culture and my role as a 1st generation Jamaican immigrant living in the U.S.

 

I start with drawings and then combine media, wearable sculpture, performance, and readymade objects, to create fantastical environments and scenarios that contest spaces that are laden with American imperialism. In doing so, my practice is the platform where I reclaim parts of my heritage that I missed as a result of my family’s migration and cultural assimilation. My experience and looking at archives inspire me to showcase the mere spectacle of being Jamaican, having grown up with representations of power and struggle.  The Jamaican experience is a proud one filled with spectacle wherever we go and my work aims to teach on liberation while depicting the socio-economic realities of most Jamaican people living in a foreign “capitalist” focused landscape.

 

With my Caribbean immigrant lens, I reference cultural traditions and colonized histories through performance and installation art. Through this, I learn and reflect on the idea of freedom, political views, and archetypes that may be rendered insignificant and at times invisible in American history. Through my reconstruction of these narratives, I invite all to ponder and participate. 

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Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow