[MUSIC PLAYING]
JESS SNOW: My
first class started
as an artist when I was
around maybe seven years
old after my mom
and I immigrated
from Canada to the US.
And after that time, I
developed a speech impediment
where I stuttered a lot.
So as a result, I would turn
towards poetry and visual art
as a way of reclaiming
my voice and creating
a world where I could understand
what's going on in front of me.
Because I think that the way
that the migration and being
one of the few
Chinese-Americans in the town
that I was growing
up, it shaped me
into needing to use art as a way
to create a sense of belonging
for myself.
So I would always
use art as a way
to create a world
where I felt more free.
And I felt more
of an affirmation
to express myself in the
world that was in front of me.
So this piece is called I Will
Never Stop Reaching for You.
And it was originally
commissioned by an organization
called CultureStrike.
And it was a series where a lot
of different immigrant artists
were paired with a letter from
a migrant woman in a detention
center.
And these were mostly
Central American mothers
writing letters
to their kids who
were on the other
side of the border.
And so the letter
that this piece
is based on was written by
her mother from Honduras
and how she was--
and there was just a
deep sense of longing
to be reconnected with her son.
And so I chose to depict
the mother and her sister
as constellations in the sky.
And they were reaching
across the border
to rejoin with
her son in the US.
And I felt the longing
that was connecting
them was this thing that was
more powerful than borders.
And it's something as old as
the Earth and the stars itself.
So I just imagined all
these immigrant families
as constellations
in the sky, forever
reaching for their loved ones.
So I think without resilience,
I think communities of color,
immigrant communities
would not have
been able to survive
and be making
the revolutionary
contributions to the world
that we are making today.
And I think resilience,
ancestrally,
is in my bones and my blood
with my family on being
the first people ever
in our family line
to leave their homelands
and immigrate to the US.
And my parents' generation,
my grandparents' generation
surviving the trauma of
the Cultural Revolution--
I think there is a lot of
resilience in my family.
And when I look into my past and
the work that I'm making now,
a lot of it is in the form of
films, and romantic dramas,
and in science fiction films--
speculative fiction
and fantasy films.
And I think that
through film, I'm
able to create a world
where my Chinese identity,
and my Chinese-American
identity,
and all the different parts
of myself, my queerness
can exist as a cohesive whole.
So I feel in the
world of my films,
I'm able to embark with
characters on a journey
where they become whole, where
they find their chosen family
and confront intergenerational
trauma and heal.
And these characters
are able to find
the resilience in themselves.
So right now, during
this global pandemic,
I'm dedicating myself to
using cinema and screenwriting
as a way to envision
brighter futures for what
queer and immigrant
communities of color
can look like in the future
when this pandemic is over
and what kind of
resilience has sustained us
throughout different
generations.
So the role of art has
a really big importance
in challenging times.
Because it's what enables
us to envision a future
where marginalized
communities can
be free in terms of a lot
of social justice movements.
Art and music and
storytelling has
been a really key part of
the success of the movements.
I think we need to see stories
on the big screen of queer
communities loving each other
and of immigrant communities
loving themselves,
honoring their families
and with the abolition of
borders and the prison system
in order to create a world where
that can be lived the reality.
Because I think so
much of social justice
is tied toward our imaginations.
And I think the
future is only going
to be as big as our
imaginations can be.
So through art
and song and film,
I think we can create
the futures that we dream
of inhabiting and then
create a map for how
that can become our realities.
As an artist, the message
that I have for the world
is we don't have to look further
than ourselves for the answers
to all of our problems and the
stories that we want to tell.
Because sometimes
there is this idea
that we have to go
to a faraway place,
and go on this huge
adventure, and be a hero,
and discover something in
order to tell a good story.
But I feel that's
such a colonial way
of looking at things.
And sometimes we don't have
to go externally and discover
something.
So sometimes all we have to
do is look inside of ourselves
and realize that ancestrally,
we already have all the stories.
We already have a lot of the
tools that we need to heal.
And for a lot of
communities of color,
there is a lot of
traditions and ways
that we have been able to
find our own resilience,
and survive, and find
our own medicine,
whether it's through
Chinese medicine
or just traditions
of meditation.
I feel a lot of the answers is
to look inwards and understand
that cycles of
intergenerational trauma
can end within our bodies
and within our lifetimes
if we're able to hold our own
selves and our own experiences
with compassion.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
