JACKY LO 羅嘉俊

Merging Identities is both engaging locally and searching across distance and time - for lost connections histories and new narratives to reconnect with my great-grandmother, a master embroiderer in China. The embroidered orange lichens on rice paper are call backs to the coastal waters of Vancouver where I was raised and in Iceland where the piece was made. The choice of rice paper is a medium that I often uses in my practice as it acts as a second skin with water, molding to the contours of an object as it becomes moist. I wanted to utilize the properties of rice paper to ground a part of myself to the Icelandic landscape along with my Chinese Canadian heritage. The piece is both durational and performative as I place the work on to the estuary’s sea wall. I then let the rice paper and embroidery decompose and give back to the organisms, nature, and the land, making my mark without disturbance.