Jennifer Tee
Tampan Tree of life, Naga~Nagini (temporary title), 2024
Tulip Petal Collage, Piezography
183 x 175 cm
In her first time exhibiting in Pakistan, Tee combines collages made with dried tulip petals and pineapple cloth textile coverings to uncover the fragile entanglements of life in the Anthropocene. The subject of the migration journey takes on autobiographical and historical meaning for Tee and the material she employs. Her father migrated with his parents and sister to the Netherlands from Indonesia on a ship in the 1950s. In keeping, the tulip was a wildly itinerant horticultural migrant who originated from the wilds of the Himalayan, Caucasus, Tien Shan, Elburz, and Pamir mountain ranges of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, who then traveled to the royal gardens of Persia and the Ottomans, and was later brought to Europe and became the subject of the first financial speculation bubble in early modern market societies of the low countries, dubbed Tulipmania.
Pressed tulip petals are meticulously arranged into motifs taken from the Tampan, square-shaped woven cloths that were exchanged during important rites of passage. Tampan are found in the Lampung region of southern Sumatra, a crucial trade route since antiquity, which has long been a crossroads of cultures and artistic traditions. In Tampan Tree of life, Naga~Nagini, the tree of life evokes the journey of human souls continuing on to new lives, while the branches snake into the naga, the mythological serpent deity with great powers and can set off storms, rain, tempests, and create lands from the sea. The Naga-Nagini takes on different symbolism as it travels and syncretizes with different local folk traditions across Hindu and Buddhist cultures in South and Southeast Asia. The tree is populated by myriad birds, reptiles, and marine creatures, displaying the vibrant diversity of the world. The work responds to experiences of cultural hybridity, identity and language, and trade routes between people, commodities, and objects from nature.
Tampan Song Birds, 2024
Tulip Petal Collage
30 x 45 cm diptych
Pressed tulip petals are meticulously arranged into motifs taken from the Tampan, square-shaped woven cloths that were exchanged during important rites of passage. Tampan are found in the Lampung region of southern Sumatra, a crucial trade route since antiquity, which has long been a crossroads of cultures and artistic traditions. Tampan Song Birds further exemplifies this diversity by depicting a brightly colored songbird reminiscent of the tropics, their feathers often materials for precious headdresses, ceremonial garments, and heirlooms.
In her first time exhibiting in Pakistan, Tee combines collages made with dried tulip petals to uncover the fragile entanglements of life in the Anthropocene. The subject of the migration journey takes on autobiographical and historical meaning for Tee and the material she employs. Her father migrated with his parents and sister to the Netherlands from Indonesia on a ship in the 1950s. In keeping, tulip was a wildly itinerant horticultural migrant who originated from the wilds of the Himalayan, Caucasus, Tien Shan, Elburz, and Pamir mountain ranges of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, who then traveled to the royal gardens of Persia and the Ottomans, and later brought to Europe and became the subject of the first financial speculation bubble in early modern market societies of the low countries, dubbed Tulipmania.
Ancestral Structure, Deep Life, 2024
Pineapple cloth, beads, aluminum bars
189 x 132 cm
On the other hand, Ancestral Structure, Deep Life is a towering hanging installation that juxtaposes architectural features from numerous indigenous, tribal, and local temples, envisioning a structure that reaches up to the sky like the tree of life itself. The artwork Jennifer Tee creates could be seen as a material representation of the soul’s journey. Questioning the relationship between spirit and matter, she works to give form to the intangible through material experimentation and performative gestures.
Born in 1973 in Arnhem, Netherlands, Jennifer Tee is a contemporary artist currently based in Amsterdam. Working across sculpture, installation, performance, photography, and collages, Tee’s work revolves around the central importance of the in-between state of what she calls the soul in limbo, where the work of art becomes a material representation of the journey of the soul. Tee also researches contemporary life, with its cross-cultural identity and narratives, its instability and complexity, and its potential for the loss of identity, language, and kinship with original cultures.