Jamaica and Me consists of silver gelatin prints and pigment ink prints. The former are images created by me this April while on a family trip in Jamaica. The pigment ink prints were created from scans of 35mm slides from my grandfather’s archives. He took most of the photos in the 1960s and early 70s when my dad was in his first decade of life. The included slides are only a fraction of this archive. The diptychs featured in this show were paired after-the-fact, and it was deeply emotional for me to see similarities between my own images and those of my grandfather. There is an unmistakable throughline of my ancestry through physical land and captured images. It was a wonderful moment when I realized this project is, like most of my personal work, indeed a self-portrait.
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Curated by Lauren Orchowski
With special thanks to Virginia Inés Vergara
Hunter College, Department of Photography
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In Loving Memory of Da
Gallery Installation at Hunter College
Artist Statement
I struggle to root my art in my Self beyond my own lifetime and the context of my identity. As a privileged white person, I feel there isn’t much to explore in terms of my place in society—no race, class, political, or social struggle. Instead I’ve turned inward, exploring my relationship with my body, my family dynamics, my mental health. While I know there is much to explore with this, the timing of my trip to Jamaica this April opened doors to a project that I can take back generations.
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My paternal grandfather moved from Jamaica when he was 18 and continued to go back with my dad and his siblings for decades to come. He passed away when I was 19, but not before I had the opportunity to visit Jamaica with him, putting images to the stories of his childhood he recounted to me during mine. All of this, coupled with my love for the food, people, and nature of Jamaica, has led me to feel deeply connected to this aspect of my heritage.
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Most people are surprised when I tell them my grandfather was Jamaican, many don’t believe me (think Karen in Mean Girls asking Lindsay Lohan “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”). It’s funny, but also very real. The only people who tend to accept my assertion with little to no hesitation are Jamaicans, because they know that not all Jamaicans are Black. My grandfather has both Black and white ancestry, but the white side can be traced back to England. Enter: colonization. I hope to research my Jamaican and British ancestry more and have both excitement and fear of what I’ll find, as many white people do. But this is something I must grapple with. Accept, learn from, and critique. The question I ask myself though, is to what extent any brutal family history should taint my love and connection for Jamaica. What am I entitled to? Guilt is only productive if I turn it into action. I am not and never will be a victim, but I also don’t want to detach myself. When I go to Jamaica with my family, we try to immerse ourselves as much as possible. No resorts where we sit on imported white sand surrounded by other foreigners. Instead, we rent a car and a house, driving up through the Blue Mountains and walking through town. I still feel out of place—because I am—but I see it as a first step in trying. I’ll always be white in Jamaica, and this is my story.​