Joanna Tam: 2024 Prilla Smith Brackett Award Winner

Joanna Tam, still image from Visibility Blanket (Wandering), 2022, Courtesy of the artist.

The Davis Museum is delighted to award Joanna Tam ( b. 1972, Hong Kong) the 2024 Prilla Smith Brackett Award, selected from over 85 submissions. Established by artist Prilla Smith Brackett '64, this award supports a female-identifying, Boston-based artist who demonstrates exceptional skill in the visual arts, aiming to enhance the representation of women in art history.

This online exhibition features a curated selection of Tam's work, accompanied by excerpts from her artist's statement.

Photo Credit: Aaron Wan

Joanna Tam is a Hong Kong-born visual artist and educator who lives and works on the ancestral and unceded lands of the Wampanoag and the Massachusett People, also known as Boston. Her interdisciplinary practice examines migration, construction of national identity, the idea of safety, and one's connection to places through video, photography, performance, installation, and community engagement. Tam is a visiting lecturer at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a member of the Mobius Artists Group. She holds an MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.
 

Joanna Tam, Visibility Backdrop (nature inspired), 2022, used safety vests, green screen backdrop, backdrop stand, backdrop clamps, HD video played on a monitor, Courtesy of the artist.

“My recent body of work, Visibility Studies, examines the meaning of hypervisibility and invisibility pertaining to safety. I approach my inquiry by making blankets and a garment from used safety vests (to represent hypervisibility and safety) and green screen material (to represent invisibility). Using video, photography, sculpture, and installation, I explore the nuances of visibility and vulnerability for folx at the margins. My investigation also includes camouflage, surveillance, and survival strategies used by animals through coloration and mimicry.”

Left: Joanna Tam, I knew what happened here (Harrison Ave., above Interstate 90), 2023, archival pigment print, 36" x 17", Courtesy of the artist.
Right: Joanna Tam, Color Correction Series: I learned partial art history here (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), 2024, archival pigment print created using a handmade pinhole camera, color correction gel light filters, tape, binder clips, push pins, 36" x 17", Courtesy of the artist.

“When I used the visibility garment/pinhole camera combo, I used it to take pictures at sites where violence had happened in the past because the victims lacked visibility, as seen in 'I knew what happened here (Harrison Ave., above Interstate 90)'. I have also used the visibility garment/pinhole camera combo to take pictures of buildings that have power over me.” 

“I like to use my handmade pinhole camera to contrast the high-tech modern surveillance camera technology. I also really enjoy the aesthetics of pinhole photography, which is often surreal, soft, poetic, and haunting at the same time. In addition, when I presented the black and white pinhole photographs together with my other pieces in Visibility Studies, which are full of neon colors, they could act as visual breaks.”

Joanna Tam, Visibility Studies Excerpt (Wandering: South End to Chinatown), 2023, HD Video, Courtesy of the artist.

“While it is crucial to increase the visibility of people who have not been seen historically, it is not that simple. To some, being visible in public spaces could put them in danger due to systemic oppression and inequalities. For instance, the history and the stories of Asian Americans have been erased and silenced for a long time in this country. Asian people are invisible until they hypervisible to become the scapegoated ‘other.’ This happened to Japanese Americans during WWII, South Asians after 9/11, and East Asians during the COVID-19 pandemic."
 

Left: Joanna Tam, Visibility Blanket (Portrait), 2021–2022, archival pigment print, 20" x 16" and 30" x 37.5", Courtesy of the artist.
Right: Joanna Tam, On Time and Water, 2023, performance & water calligraphy, Lot Lab in Charlestown Navy Yard, MA, From performance series, Decoding the Colonial | NAPJ, with Lani Asunción in partnership with the Boston Public Art Triennial, Courtesy of the artist. Photo Credit: James Barham.

“My Visibility Blanket (Portrait) series is the first sub-project in Visibility Studies. I had been wanting to use safety vest material to make work for a while. When I was experimenting with the material, I felt something was missing. I did not know how to use them until I decided to include green screen material. I thought doing so would expand and complicate the conversation on safety, being seen, and not being seen. Visually, green also works well with neon yellow and neon orange. In addition, adding green screen material means that I can play with chroma key, both in post-production and live situations. I then made my first visibility blanket, which is the one in the photograph Visibility Blanket (Portrait).  After I created the portrait series where I interacted with the blanket, I then started making videos and more blankets of different sizes.”

Tam’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions include American Studies, 2019 at the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University; Visibility Studies at Regis College Fine Arts Center; Wasenstraße Story at Chrom VI in Idar-Oberstein, Germany; Let's Story at the Boston Children's Museum; Standard Practice at Carol Schlosberg Gallery at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA; and American Studies at the Teaching Gallery at Hudson Valley Community College, Troy NY.

Tam’s projects have been awarded Best Art Film at the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York, UK and the Third Prize at the Prix de la Photographie, Paris. She is also the recipient of the 2020 SMFA Traveling Fellowship. She has been invited to attend artist residencies at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Boston Center for the Arts, the Boston Children's Museum, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Wedding Cake House. Her work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Boston Art Review, Artscope, and Emergency Index.

To learn more about Tam ’s work, visit her website: https://www.joannatam.net/