We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jason Chai a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jason, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The artistic projects that feel the most meaningful to me are the ones that I drew inspiration from my personal stories and reflected them through artmaking. These projects were heavily charged with intimate sentiments that encapsulates my experience whose emotions could universally resonate with the audience. In my recent mid-residency show in CalArts titled Welcome to My Home, I explored my idea and interpretation of home with an emphasis on my relationship with my grandmother. In a way, the pieces in the show are the fruition out of a period of change and uncertainty. Coming back to the States for a MFA degree meant a lot of shift in my life, including leaving home and family again, and the turbulence of readjusting hit stronger than ever before, which was why the idea of home occupied my mine for the first couple month during the process of planning for the show, and hence the projects. These personal projects capture certain feelings of the moment and preserve them as a monument for my future self and for the audience.

Jason, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a Chinese interdisciplinary artist currently based in Los Angeles, and the majority of my work roots in different aspects of identity, such as personal identity, queerness and gender, and family, etc. A lot of my inspiration comes from my personal experience, which is why I see my work as a response to the world around me. Coming from a media background allows me to experiment with different mediums and adopt the one I feel the most intimate and appropriate. I want my work to function as a bridge that connects the bubbles of perception between me and the audience, so that they could get a peek into my head space and feel what I felt and maybe gain a new perspective about something. Meanwhile, my Chinese cultural background also provides me with the opportunity of having another point of view on the same subject matter. Sometimes my inspirations originate from a Chinese context, but I think the sentiments that the artwork instigates would be universal, regardless of their cultural background. I aspire that my art can connect art, social life and human emotions.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

I think the most rewarding aspect is when the audience can see something in themselves through my experience in my pieces. When someone told me that the pieces in my show reminded them of their own grandmother, I felt that we have somehow connected with each other. What I felt is what they felt. This kind of connection or acknowledgement means the world to me.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Sometimes I fear people might think the intimate and personal moments that are becoming more and more prevalent in my work would be deemed as cheesy or corny by some. In a way, I think there is a fine line that is for me to walk on between honesty and cringe. What seems unique could also be universal, and it is the right balance that refrains the work from blatant corniess. Personal sentiments had to be voiced in an intentional and delicate manner for them to be understood and echoed.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jaaasssoooon @zengjie_chai