Jenna Lee

Jenna Lee is a Larrakia, Wardaman and Karajarri artist whose practice explores acts of identification, labelling and the relationships formed between language, label and object.

Part of Craft Contemporary, Jenna will undertake a virtual residency where she will create a series of regenerated paper objects using pages of historic colonial books, creating objects of cultural significance, pride and beauty.

Jenna, we are really looking forward to your Virtual Makers in Residence as part of Craft Contemporary. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your creative practice?

I am a Larrakia, Wardaman and Karrajarri woman with mixed Asian (Japanese, Chinese and Filipino) and Anglo Australian heritage. I live in Richmond with my partner and our 4-year-old chocolate toy poodle, Korra.

My background is primarily in design - I did my undergraduate study in Visual Communication Design at the Queensland College of Art. I still work as a freelance graphic designer primarily for First Nations curators, artists, writers and arts organisations. I really only transitioned to a fine art/craft practice 3 or so years ago.

I think my proudest achievements to date have been receiving the Young and Emerging Dreaming Award at the First Nations Art Awards in 2019 and this year receiving the Wandjuk Marika 3D Memorial Award at the Telstra National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art Awards (NATSIAA) for my work ‘HIStory Vessels’.

When I step back and think about my creative journey so far it feels so natural to have ended up here. I love creating and making with my hands and never felt the same level of happiness painting or drawing. There is something about taking a material and transforming it into another that I love deeply.

During your residency, you hope to create a series of paper objects and vessels using pages of historic colonial books. Can you talk more about this as a concept?

My practice and all of the work I create is really about transformation of language and words through physical action. A number of years ago I came across a very racist fiction novel written about Aboriginal people living around Darwin, which is where I am from - Larrakia Country. It was at a secondhand book fair in Brisbane and my friend said to me ‘you should turn this into art’. At the time I had no idea what I would do with it, so I bought it (it turns out that one is actually very rare so is now in my collection). I love books, and the idea of ‘destroying’ a book went against every fibre of my being.

It wasn’t until about a year later, when I was living in London walking through secondhand bookstores that the idea of transforming the book from one form into another occurred to me. That what I was wanting to do wasn’t actually destroying the book, it was deconstructing its elements and then putting them back together in an elevated form. It was a form of material science, of alchemy, resulting is something far more beautiful than before I started.

Since that time I have explored many ways of transforming the pages of various racist and problematic text through a process of analysis, deconstruction and reconstruction. I use every part of the book and the only materials I add are those used within the bookbinding and book restoration profession.

What are some of the processes and techniques you use?

When I first began sourcing books to use, I was interested in Young Adult fiction novels, it was my way of processing and understanding how and where very backwards views about Aboriginal people originated and why they can persist today. They helped me to understand that’s what people grew up reading and then teaching their children. It doesn’t make the views any more justifiable, but understanding that has helped me process it better.

I am now really focused on Aboriginal language dictionaries, specifically those who homogenise our people into the one listing of word as there were over 250 languages and 850 dialects in Australia prior to colonisation. I find these books almost funny, because they are completely useless as you can’t actually learn the one ‘Aboriginal Language’.

All of the techniques I use are common paper-craft processes, most of which my Mum taught me while growing up. I started out pulping pages of books and using this to hand sculpt the various forms. Excitingly I have worked out a process of turning the pages into string which I am able to weave together using the bookbinding thread. This is my favorite method for the outcome it produces. I also use collage/découpage and paper folding, the book I am working with usually dictates which process is best.

What inspires your creative practice?

Before lockdowns I was a frequent visitor of museums and galleries. I absolutely love all museums and actually did my Post-Grad in Museum Studies. The main reason for wanting to live in the UK was to visit ‘anthropology’ museums which hold some of the earliest collected Aboriginal objects. I have been very fortunate to handle and study Larrakia women’s objects at the Queensland Museum and handle women’s objects from North Australia at the Pitt Rivers Anthropology Museum at Oxford University in the UK. My focus for these visits has always been woven works as well as body adornment pieces of Larrakia women and girls, these objects really inspire my work.

I also find great inspiration in the book I am actually working with, each one really sets the tone for everything, it might be the colour I use for a series is the same on the cover or the subject matter might lead me down a path with trying to create particular forms.

Has 2020 given you time to make or do something that you might not have?

Yes and no. There were a few months where I wasn’t able to create at all, I got stuck in Australia during the travel ban and my Partner, all of my stuff and my studio where in London. In a matter of 3 days we had to pack up everything and re-start in Australia. I am actually still waiting for all the supplies form my studio, I think they are on a ship in the middle of the ocean at the moment.

However, now that I am finally set up again with a home studio, I have been making almost non-stop. I have been focusing a lot on the woven basket forms I make out of books, but I am also trying to work out a way to create molds that I can use for my pulped works. I think it’s given me time to reflect on what process I enjoy the most and which ones have the best outcomes.

What’s next for you and your practice?

I have started to incorporate other colonial objects such as furniture as well as dinner and serving ware. I am wanting to push my practice into larger installation-based works while still maintaining the pulped and woven objects as a constant I can improve. I have also just started playing with the digital collage for the books that are too rare, or I can’t find multiple copies. I still want to work with these books, but I have a rule that I always keep one copy in my own collection.

I also want to push to be completely waste free. Current there are some not so sustainable elements of how I can make forms, like single use molds for pulping, and even though it is an incredibly small amount of waste I am exploring and experimenting with creating and sourcing molds I can use over and over again.