Jay Simple

Lives and works in Pamplin, VA, USA

Artist statement

Exodus Home utilizes self-portraiture, archival photographs from the Great Depression, and sculptural installations to explore the issues of migration and home. Capturing depictions of domestic and agricultural spaces in Virginia, specifically Prince Edward County, these images display space which were occupied and or abandoned during the period of the Great Migration, which occurred between 1916-1970, when six million people escaped violent persecution in the south and arrived in northern, midwestern, and western cities across the United States. In the case of Prince Edward County, as documented by W.E.B Dubois during his research for The Philadelphia Negro, which led to his study of Prince Edward County titled “The Negroes of Farmville”, many residents moved to Philadelphia. Philadelphia, where I was born, in the present day is marked with violence and resistance to these migrant’s descendants' desire for liberty and life. This is an occurrence which marks most contemporary urban spaces of black and brown people. To migrate back to the places that one’s ancestors fled is to question how we understand our personal narratives of belonging, past and present, and the memory that finds itself ingrained in the landscape we inhabit. Through this visual musings the desire is to enable space to question the cycles of violence, migration, and building a new home in the rubble of past struggles which connects personal experiences to global phenomenons.

Artwork