The Bronx Museum

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My personal and artistic journey reflects a rich tapestry of cultural, historical, and migratory experiences. The intersection of the African diaspora, European colonialism, and Chinese migration in my origin story provides a unique perspective on identity and heritage.

The narrative of my ancestral convergence in Jamaica, marked by the legacies of slavers, enslaved Africans, and migrant workers, is followed by my family’s migration to the United States. This transition from the post-colonial Caribbean to the cultural melting pot of the United States adds layers to my understanding of self and place.

My artistic practice becomes a powerful means to explore and express the complexities of my identity and the evolving landscapes of both Jamaica and the United States. The juxtaposition of my early memories of Jamaica, frozen in time yet evolving in meaning, with my experiences as an immigrant in the U.S., highlights the dynamic nature of cultural identity. Learn More>>

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I am interested in facilitating moments of sensation, connection, and communication through the visceral and vicarious elements of performance and their afterlives as photographs, videos, sculptures, and installations: all traces of my physical self. Their materiality and texture encourage the simple act of feeling. My works make the remnants of colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal violence visible and tactile. Believing that the toll of such violence resides down beneath the skin and flesh, I begin the process of developing new works by extracting somatic knowledge and memories from my own body. Familial, community, and national histories and archives also serve as inspirations for my works, which offer audiences specific vignettes of my experiences of moving through this world as a Black queer femme.

My scripted evening-length pieces and durational performances combine movement, sound, and the live fabrication of costumes, sculptures, and structures that are distinctly corporeal. Learn More>>

Glazed ceramics, thread
Dimensions variable

HD video TRT
0:59 seconds

Jodie Lyn-Kee-Chow’s works here explore survival and resilience, particularly through the lives of enslaved people in Jamaica. The artist created the ceramic pieces, inspired by images of 17th-century African tools, as a deeply personal process of connecting to ancestral memory and clay as a medium. The video, Meet Me in the Sky Parlor, depicts Lyn-Kee-Chow as Mary Williamson, an 18th-century enslaved woman; through performance, she connects to and maintains the story and voice of an undertold historical figure.

U.S. cotton flag, white aluminum flagpole, white cast aluminum bracket, galvanized steel caddy, 50 blue Gillette disposable razors, Gillette shaving cream
Dimensions variable

Digital video
2:30 minutes

Asia Stewart’s performance and multimedia piece, the money is in the blades, clarify a conflicted relationship to her country into a destructive action that exposes patriotism’s reliance on the military-industrial complex.