Tomiko Jones
Artists Statement:
The overarching element throughout my work is a relationship to place, a loose mapping that echoes the internal terrain. Water is ever present, shaping my identity. It represents generational migration from Japan to Hawai’i to California, to Washington and is imaged in photographic works and projected video in site-responsive installations. Uniting technology from digital capture or drone footage with 19th century historical processes, I work interchangeably across the rich history of the photographic medium.
"Hatsubon" is a memorial for my father exploring the dynamic tension between tradition and performance. The materiality of the exhibition suggests the dualities of the fleeting and the lasting, the ephemeral and the corporeal, and the pendulous state between longing and release. Hatsubon is a ceremony marking the first anniversary of a loved one’s death, held during the yearly ritual of O-bon, a Japanese Buddhist custom of honoring ancestors. The work evidences how cultural customs, design, and materials are my creative methodology.
"Rattlesnake Lake" is a long-term photographic project drawing on the complex politics and manifold histories of water in the West. The series images the Cedar River watershed, the drinking water supply for the city of Seattle with a field camera reminiscent of those used for 19th century surveys. Using Type 55 4x5 Polaroid negatives, I collected water from the lake to clear the film as an invitation of the lake to merge physically into the image. The final prints are platinotypes.
My current work, "These Grand Places", is a socially engaged photographic project that explores public lands as national identity. Questions of land use, resource management, the effect of climate crisis and human im/migration guide the project. I've included a few images for context within my larger related bodies of work.