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Artworks
Jennifer Ling Datchuk American, b. 1980
Hustlers, my neck, my back series, 2023Porcelain12 x 9 x 4 in
30.5 x 22.9 x 10.2 cmFurther images
These porcelain baby forms are cast from an antique Chinese export ware ceramic pillow form—made to prop up the head and protect hairstyles during sleep. An uncomfortable form of labor...These porcelain baby forms are cast from an antique Chinese export ware ceramic pillow form—made to prop up the head and protect hairstyles during sleep. An uncomfortable form of labor meant to protect the façade of wealth and status. I remade them to carry the weight of Asian women’s labor, and they seem to wear expressions of delight on their faces while in a tabletop position, carrying things on their backs—a nod to how Asian women experience fetishization while also laboring and providing service, product, and resource. The objects they carry—peaches, oranges, blue-and-white porcelain vessels, peach pits, and sewing thimbles—represent longevity, luck, and beauty, and are symbolic of the labor they embody and the comfort and care they provide for others, even when they often go without.
Provenance
Artist StudioExhibitions
Jennifer Ling Datchuk: Eat Bitterness, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; curator: Rachel Adams, 2023Literature
Trimble, Lynn. “An Artist Who Braids Cultures, from the Porcelain Trade to Beyoncé.” Southwest Contemporary, July 24, 2025. (illustrated)
Fisher, Michelle Millar. “Jennifer Ling Datchuk Interviewed by Michelle Millar Fisher.” Bomb Magazine, September 5, 2023 (illustrated)
