Jasmine Thomas-Girvan

You've described your childhood home in Kingston, surrounded by nature, as a catalyst for your creative imagination. Can you share how that early experience continues to shape your practice today?

JASMINE THOMAS-GIRVAN: It may have been the genesis of my awareness of nature as Sanctuary... it is its own temple..... this is my earliest experience of transcendence... cradled in the arm of a plum tree... there is abandonment, nourishment, and security. The profound silence of Nature urges us to be still, listen, and let the world find us. To pause, pay attention, and trust the silence and uncertainty. It is a guide that invites us to slow down and rediscover ourselves through presence and attention, especially when we feel lost. This attention to the rhythms of the earth through many senses—sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste—awakens a multisensory intelligence encouraging alternate understandings of wholeness. This attention allows the flowering of something else. This reverence for nature continues to influence my practice, endowing imaginary worlds that privilege Taino and African cosmologies deeply rooted in the land.

Can you speak about your process of "inverse archaeology"? How do you conceptualize this term and apply it to your assemblages?

JTG: So in archaeology, we unearth evidence. In the matrix of our colonial erasure, through 'critical fabulation', I am trying to create alternative narratives by creating works which have the potential to function like an artefact...objects which are charged and changed by the imagination to amplify the subsumed narratives vital to our History. I consider it a way to reclaim and reshape historical narratives for the future.

Transformation, identity, memory, and resistance are recurring themes in your work. What personal or cultural experiences have most influenced these explorations?

JTG: I grew up in Kingston, Jamaica, in the 1970s. This was a moment of intense social, political and economic upheaval. Jamaica was newly independent: emerging from crown colony status into a country embracing self-determination under an ideology of Democratic socialism. It was a time of material scarcity and the whole nation rallied around the mantra 'tun u han mek fashion' as a way to deal with the harsh realities of political and economic sabotage.

We were called on to use the resources at hand to activate a collective vision of real independence. The vision of creating social transformation, understanding the agency of self in relation to the collective, was a fundamental strategy. So at an early age issues such as identity, liberation, resourcefulness, perseverance, self-reliance, transformation, all indispensable constructions around sovereignty were very real to me—philosophically, ecologically, materially. The contradictions and complexities of so-called Independence were challenged and the generative energy of solidarity unleashed the fertile imagination of the population under colonial dominance. Witnessing the enthusiasm galvanized in support of an island-wide literacy programme, the resolute Rastafari culture, cultural flourishing in Reggae music, a strident women's movement activated, an agriculture plan to empower small farmers and ultimately the explosion of Black pride was affirming.

Concepts such as sovereignty, solidarity, identity, perseverance and self-determination previously a fantasy for the majority of the black population all were active in my early sense of self. I was profoundly shaped by this period and these are recurring concerns in my work, philosophically, spiritually and ecologically. I have learnt that it is not what is achieved but who we become while accomplishing the task that is most important. This inheritance of agency is a tool for empowerment, healing and evolution.

Many of your works include references to African cosmologies, ancestral memory, and postcolonial politics. How do you approach these themes through visual storytelling?

JTG: We know so little about ourselves. There are still so many gaps in our histories. I am instinctively detecting and interpreting subtle signs which lead me to discover treasures beyond our present knowledge. The stories that I investigate beckon me. It sometimes appears in material form or sometimes obscure information. There are memories beckoning us to discover more.

Our true inheritance is finding these stories and amplifying them in the work.

Annalee Davis described your work as rooted in magical realism, blending the logical with the supernatural. Do you see yourself working within this genre? How do you see "the magical" operating in your work?

JTG: Here is where I might challenge the notion that my work fits snugly into the category of magical realism. The reality of occupying many realities at once perhaps was normalised as I slipped from the reality of the urban environment fluidly into the otherworldly space that obeyed a cryptic code, each space only separated by a gate. The experience of Black people in reality is surreal! But it is very real in its impact on our psyches. When I create work the reservoir of information combines with my imagination to birth my reality. For some this fits into the Magical Realist genre; for some, Surrealism is named? I am really trying to share our inheritance in a captivating, empowering way.

In Cosmic Whispers – HMV, you critique the legacy of colonialism and the music industry. What was your starting point for that piece, and how did it evolve?

JTG: The starting point was my work on the table 'Parallel realities dwelling in the heartland of my people' which used opulent sterling silver tableware—spoils of empire—etc. to create an explicit narrative exposing the source of this opulence—the Plantation economy—displaying the cost in life and liberties.

The Turntable series was a natural extension of my investigations of 'The Table'. In the turntable series the resources of plunder are transmuted into an apparatus for liberation. Music has always been a tool for transcending historical violence—Jazz, reggae, gospels, drumming etc. In Cosmic Whispers HMV—a bicycle wheel, silverware, macaw feathers and a bronze stylus in the shape of a hand reading the growth bands of an ancient tree—create a surreal Gramophone. Referencing the RCA gramophone logo depicting a dog enthralled by the recording of his deceased master's voice.

In Finding the Stone, there's a beautiful juxtaposition of serenity and weight—can you unpack the symbolism of breath, grounding, and transcendence in this work?

JTG: The inspiration for this piece is from a poem by Olive Senior, "Finding your Stone." This poem resonated with me because it looked at the essence of our predicament... the endless search seemingly heavy burdensome yet grounded. In the presence of the obvious—a stone—ordinary wisdom might elude us if we are not present... time can erode a stone gradually but it remains a solid formidable form which has been listening to communications over eons... a simple solid profound presence... whose wisdom is ever unfolding.. And even our understanding of things deepens over time. I recently came across an explanation of the importance of the stone in Santeria—the foundation or focus of Santeria is The Stone (Ota) where the magical attribute of the natural forces of deities reside. These stones, generally round and polished river stone, are containers of each of the divinities and the practitioners must have them in their possession at least during major rituals. So another ingredient from the African spiritual cosmology.

As we search for meaning I believe the answers are all around us, presence is what is required... flights of fancy... occupying cloudspace might actually help ground us. This connection is ancestral alignment. "The heart gets weak if the spirit is kept too dry"

Do stories or characters emerge in your process organically, or do you begin with a narrative in mind?

JTG: There is no formula... but there is a playlist that begins to unfold naturally. For me the process is intuitive. It might begin to take shape through sketches which might immediately be made into a preliminary model or sit and hibernate on a shelf as a mystery for a year or two then suddenly spring to life with vigour and crystallise in a flash... I guess there is a reservoir of preferences in my subconscious accumulated from my experience—a playlist of sorts, and it all enters the work at will. My pieces echo their organic origins. I am intrigued by the poetry in Nature and attempt to capture the elemental and ephemeral beauty and rhythms thriving in the world. The process may begin with a walk in the Cockpit country, the signaling of morning in birdsong, Owls visiting by moonlight, moss growing on a tombstone, the intense colour of an afternoon light in my garden, the call and response at a revival meeting in Watt Town, proximity to glowing embers trod in a Kali fire festival, tears my own and those etched on a Taino effigy. The sources of my inspiration are as diverse and rich as the land we are privileged to walk on in the footsteps of our ancestors: myths, architecture, literature, food, swaddling, moonfire and even the way feathers mysteriously arrive on the wind. ALSO I am committed to presence and connections so current affairs enter the work, who could have predicted BLM and the movement that resulted in the murder of George Floyd? How can we avert our eyes as these moments unfold?

What's next for you—are there themes or mediums you're hoping to explore further?

JTG: A small bespoke jewelry collection of Talismans. Our life's journey should be marked by gems that celebrate our unique inheritance. In a way I am returning to the most intimate sculpture—adornment. Honoring our legacies so that they can be effortlessly passed down and reimagined by future generations. True to our essence, symbolically, spiritually and physically close to the heart.