Jenie Gao Studio | Dear Ma

Dear Ma | Ethic

Artist's Book / 2022

Dear Ma | Ethic is a poetic exploration of how we arrive at our ethics. The book unfolds on one side to show a poem on what an ethic is, and on the other side to reveal a personal lived experience.

Click to read more about Dear Ma | Ethic

“Holding is not easy. Holding requires tension in one’s fingers, joints, body, and emotions. Every strain creates weakness.

“Water does not hold. It is held. Free from withholding, water’s power overcomes rock, fire, and most elements.

“Yet water cannot play its role without vessels and channels. Even this essential ingredient of life needs to be held.

“Water is a necessary life infrastructure. But when polluted with toxins, that which sustains us simultaneously poisons us.

“Colonization is like poison in the water.

“Is it possible to cleanse these currents?

“It is not easy to be a root. Roots hold earth together, resisting erosion. Roots channel sustenance into the body of the plant.

“A root is not as powerful as water. Nor does it need to be. It is a remarkable quality to be breakable, yet choose to hold ground.

“To be weaker than the dominant infrastructure and still hold on, to remove harm while providing nourishment.

“This is an ethic.”

-poem from Jenie Gao's artist’s book, Dear Ma | Ethic

row of books installed in exhibition, An Ethic Is A Root

two books folded in opposite ways to show the Dear Ma side and the Ethic side of the book

Page on the Dear Ma side of the book

Front cover of Ethic side of the book

Page on Ethic side of the book

Book unfolded to show one full side of Ethic

Book unfolded to show one full side of Dear Ma

Book partially unfolded

Title: Dear Ma | Ethic

Medium: Artist's book, inkjet print on plain copy paper
Dimensions: 5 x 15 inches unfolded, 2.5 x 2.5 inches folded

Share this message: