Brooklyn, New York | Mentor: Carolyn Drake
Jasmine Huang is a lens-based artist living in Brooklyn, NY. She grew up in the suburbs of Memphis,TN, and cites her upbringing in the South as a core part of her education. Huang studied politics and alternative process photography at Sewanee, the University of the South, where she learned to photograph with the view camera.
Her work investigates questions of memory and mythology through family history and lore. Using household memorabilia and photographs of loved ones, she explores the obfuscation of imagined and lived realities.
“Being a PhotoWork Junior Fellow was an enriching and challenging experience that gave me the freedom and resources to push myself artistically and technically. I was able to expand upon my art practice and take myself out of my comfort zone, photographing in new ways and further developing how I consider image-making. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to participate in the PhotoWork Junior Fellowship, and am excited to continue applying the momentum I’ve gained from it towards my art practice.”
-Jasmine Huang | 2025 Junior Fellow
Project Statement
In high school, I learned of my father’s involvement with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Shortly
after, I found a photograph of demonstrators overtaking a military vehicle. The man standing on the tank had my father’s profile and stocky legs, but when I asked Baba if that was him, he refused to answer. Later, I chose to show the picture to my history class, telling everyone that my father was then same man in the photograph. This memory was my first introduction to the ambiguity of the camera lens—where documentary and a rewriting of truth can occur.
This memory serves as a cornerstone of the project I’ve been developing over the last four years using a combination of old family pictures and contemporary images I’ve captured with my view camera. My photographs depict familial intimacy and examine the blurred lines between imagination and documentation. A pitted dragon fruit cleaved open like a broken heart is paired with a diptych of a matriarch in red, in one frame gazing directly at the viewer and in the other looking afar. Pictures of overseas family members are sequenced alongside recent portraits of individuals living in the US, their faces wavering between illumination and obscuration. By pairing recent images captured on film with archival family photographs, I craft a non-linear story that reflects on family folklore and fictional truths.
In considering America’s geopolitical state, my work intends to uplift the immigrant narrative and contribute to the conversation on diasporic identities. If this country is made of immigrants, then it should follow that we ask what our origin stories are—as a nation, as families, and as individuals. Where we come from can refer to the nature of our conception, geographically and culturally speaking; it can also be a question of family: How much am I like my father? How much am I like my mother? And how much am I like myself?
2025 Junior Fellows: Walker Bankson | Sam Gulliver | Rosemary Haynes | Jasmine Huang | Jess Rhodes | Lawren Simmons