A Conversation with Jane Tam
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Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.
Jane Tam: I’m Chinese American, but never paid attention in Chinese school when I was a kid, so I can’t really read or write the language. I like to take the train when there are only a handful of riders and when the sun beams through the windows onto the seats so that riders squint. I look forward to dark summer nights with fireflies swarming my backyard in Brooklyn. It brings me back to my childhood when my grandparents used to enjoy the summer breeze in the darkness of our yard.
NP: How did you discover photography?
JT: My mother yelled at me when I went through old family photographs, cut them up, created collages, and hid them from her during my elementary school days. I was always the hands-on type and started doodling from watching my older brother and sister do the same. Since then, I have focused in art. Graphic design was in my blood during the early years of high school until I chose a photography class as an elective. I fell in love with being an observer and realized I had neglected the details of the world around me before then. It takes me a while to warm up to people, so I find photography as a way to break the barrier and often help me loosen up.
NP: Where do you find inspiration?
JT: I try to surround myself with art, whether it is from books, music, or visual art. One of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami and I absolutely dreamed my way through “Kafka on the Shore.” His relationships between characters are intricate, philosophical, and reflects a lot of the characters I associate myself with on a daily basis.
My family is the source of most of my projects. The relationships in my family are formed from opposites so there were always eccentric people around me. I spent a lot of time looking through old family albums and always asked my mother about the relationships of relatives I never came to know. It was the stories told that transcribed most of my work.
NP: How do your projects come about?
JT: My childhood memories have a profound influence over the way projects come about. I am the youngest of three in the family and both siblings are significantly older in age. My parents were always working so my grandparents helped raise me. I guess from all that I became an observer.
“Foreigners in Paradise” began with a feeling of homesickness when I moved from Brooklyn to Syracuse for college. The culture shock overwhelmed me, as I felt more Chinese than ever coming from a big city to a more typical American suburban culture. It was an identity that stood out for once and I was sort of uncomfortable with it. I ventured home many weekends to get some comfort from familiar surroundings but I somehow grew apart from the physical home and started to notice the relationships my family and I had with living in Brooklyn. One of the first photographs I took were interior shots of the house; the organized clutter, the tin-foiled stovetop, the multiple calendars in one room, etc. From there, the investigation for the Chinese American in the backdrop of America began as I narrowed in on the members of the family.
Hong Kong is my mother's hometown. She always spoke of the city whenever she reminisced about the past or when we’re watching Chinese-language television. She spent about two decades in that city before moving to America with my father. That city was always a mystery to me since I grew up seeing it on screen, from rental VHS tapes of Hong Kong television series. I would only hear stories about the street food, the markets, the islands, my relatives, and what the city meant to my parents through their eyes. I had a chance to visit Hong Kong for a few times in the past three years and always felt like an outsider in an insider culture there. From that feeling, I started to shoot “Asleep at Sea.” I chose to photograph in more rural parts of the big city, focusing on the outlying islands, because the slower pace atmosphere reflected the Hong Kong my mother grew up in the late 50s and 60s.
NP: What's next?
JT: Since graduating from Syracuse University, I moved back home to Brooklyn and quickly found a full-time job in the photography industry. Balancing a job and my art making has been a tough challenge because there never is enough hours in the day. I hope to continue photographing for “Foreigners in Paradise,” working toward capturing more portraits of more distant family members in the landscape of Brooklyn. Traveling is also in my blood so I hope to go back to Hong Kong in the next two years and work toward a fuller body of work. I am also dabbling in the beginning of a new project that consists of drawings and photographs of my family. It brings me back to my childhood obsession of collage and I hope this new body of work can come organically to me as I experiment.
To view more of Jane Tam's work, visit www.janetam.com.
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Nymphoto: Tell us a little about yourself.
Jane Tam: I’m Chinese American, but never paid attention in Chinese school when I was a kid, so I can’t really read or write the language. I like to take the train when there are only a handful of riders and when the sun beams through the windows onto the seats so that riders squint. I look forward to dark summer nights with fireflies swarming my backyard in Brooklyn. It brings me back to my childhood when my grandparents used to enjoy the summer breeze in the darkness of our yard.
NP: How did you discover photography?
JT: My mother yelled at me when I went through old family photographs, cut them up, created collages, and hid them from her during my elementary school days. I was always the hands-on type and started doodling from watching my older brother and sister do the same. Since then, I have focused in art. Graphic design was in my blood during the early years of high school until I chose a photography class as an elective. I fell in love with being an observer and realized I had neglected the details of the world around me before then. It takes me a while to warm up to people, so I find photography as a way to break the barrier and often help me loosen up.
NP: Where do you find inspiration?
JT: I try to surround myself with art, whether it is from books, music, or visual art. One of my favorite authors is Haruki Murakami and I absolutely dreamed my way through “Kafka on the Shore.” His relationships between characters are intricate, philosophical, and reflects a lot of the characters I associate myself with on a daily basis.
My family is the source of most of my projects. The relationships in my family are formed from opposites so there were always eccentric people around me. I spent a lot of time looking through old family albums and always asked my mother about the relationships of relatives I never came to know. It was the stories told that transcribed most of my work.
NP: How do your projects come about?
JT: My childhood memories have a profound influence over the way projects come about. I am the youngest of three in the family and both siblings are significantly older in age. My parents were always working so my grandparents helped raise me. I guess from all that I became an observer.
“Foreigners in Paradise” began with a feeling of homesickness when I moved from Brooklyn to Syracuse for college. The culture shock overwhelmed me, as I felt more Chinese than ever coming from a big city to a more typical American suburban culture. It was an identity that stood out for once and I was sort of uncomfortable with it. I ventured home many weekends to get some comfort from familiar surroundings but I somehow grew apart from the physical home and started to notice the relationships my family and I had with living in Brooklyn. One of the first photographs I took were interior shots of the house; the organized clutter, the tin-foiled stovetop, the multiple calendars in one room, etc. From there, the investigation for the Chinese American in the backdrop of America began as I narrowed in on the members of the family.
Hong Kong is my mother's hometown. She always spoke of the city whenever she reminisced about the past or when we’re watching Chinese-language television. She spent about two decades in that city before moving to America with my father. That city was always a mystery to me since I grew up seeing it on screen, from rental VHS tapes of Hong Kong television series. I would only hear stories about the street food, the markets, the islands, my relatives, and what the city meant to my parents through their eyes. I had a chance to visit Hong Kong for a few times in the past three years and always felt like an outsider in an insider culture there. From that feeling, I started to shoot “Asleep at Sea.” I chose to photograph in more rural parts of the big city, focusing on the outlying islands, because the slower pace atmosphere reflected the Hong Kong my mother grew up in the late 50s and 60s.
NP: What's next?
JT: Since graduating from Syracuse University, I moved back home to Brooklyn and quickly found a full-time job in the photography industry. Balancing a job and my art making has been a tough challenge because there never is enough hours in the day. I hope to continue photographing for “Foreigners in Paradise,” working toward capturing more portraits of more distant family members in the landscape of Brooklyn. Traveling is also in my blood so I hope to go back to Hong Kong in the next two years and work toward a fuller body of work. I am also dabbling in the beginning of a new project that consists of drawings and photographs of my family. It brings me back to my childhood obsession of collage and I hope this new body of work can come organically to me as I experiment.
To view more of Jane Tam's work, visit www.janetam.com.
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