Jacky Lo

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