Jazmine Hayes

Lives and works in New York, NY, USA

Artist statement

I am an interdisciplinary visual artist, educator, musician and poet exploring through an array of mediums informed by research and personal experience. My practice is responsive to space and environment in honoring the body, the spiritual and the ritual. I am in constant exploration of how these 3 elements rupture through the indigeneity of historical & present cultural traditions of the African diaspora. This consists of connecting the overlapping histories of Black American southern, Afro-Caribbean and West African cultures— questioning the ways in which our histories are preserved through cultural traditions. My mediums of choice are performance, sound, textile, printmaking, drawing, installation, video and writing. My most recent research has explored the ways patterns – specifically across textile, sound and movement– are used as coded communication, acts of protection and acts of preservation. With ideas of pattern making through hair braiding techniques across African cultures, I am in exploration of the connections of weaving traditions of the diaspora used as code. This research informs the context of the ways in which our craft technologies inform our current digital technologies.

Artwork