"The abdomen can be the sight of physical scars that reveal an internal pain. The scars from multiple surgeries tell so many stories of endless doctor visits. So much of this invisible suffering is tied to our fertility, sexuality and womanhood that often gets treated like it’s all in our head. Porcelain is often associated with fragility but it is quite a resilient material. I’m inspired by kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics in gold. It treats breakage and repair by honoring the history of the object and finding beauty in the broken." - Jennifer Ling Datchuk

“Porcelain allows Datchuk to communicate dualities; it is fragile yet vitreous, opaque yet translucent. In the earliest Western accounts of porcelain, it was described as a ‘fifth element,’ a material unlike any encountered before, ‘of a middle nature between earth and glass, semipellucid.’ This liminal material nature lends itself to expressing the binaries and constructs of her own identity. - Darro, Sarah, “Critically Making Self,” Jennifer Ling Datchuk: Half, F&M Projects, 2019.