Event I: Joyce Yu-Jean Lee

On Wednesday, November 15th I attended the Joyce Yu-Jean Lee Art lecture. Joyce gave a presentation on her life, past education, past artworks, current art, and future art she is working on. Her story was one of resilience and passion.
During her presentation she mentioned that political turmoil, and tragedy really spark her creativity. Fashion marketing and media statistics was her original major but after 9/11, one of her friends had perished in tower one and she recalled "studying fashion marketing was the responsible thing to do, but 9/11 was a reflection time in my life to reevaluate my life goal and see what I would be proud of leaving behind if I were to die the next day." So, she immediately began her journey to become an artist (her true passion) and started taking night classes while working full time in NYC. After graduating she decided to go to grad school at MICA in Baltimore for painting but ultimately left as a video artist. She is now teaching part time at Jersey City and NYC at the fashion institute of technology.
For the rest of the event she showed us the progression of her art, I found her earlier pieces some of the most interesting. There was one of her projection paintings named "Hover" which was displayed in a corner of a gallery. She first drew a pastel painting of a cinderblock dark corner of a room and then with green screen technology placed a bunch of actors to cross over into the 2-D art world. Wandering and watching 6 corporate business sharks looked to be impatiently waiting for something. Joyce said this was the first project where she challenged herself to see how long she could capture and hold an audiences attention. She proximately covered her newest past project which was the "Firewall Internet Cafe", where she mimicked a traditional Chinese internet cafe but in NY and gave New Yorkers the chance to experience what internet censorship is like; specifically what is in China. 
I think overall my favorite part of the event was listening to her share her passion and experience. She expressed that her excitement for life derives from truly not knowing what is on the horizon. I respected her immensely for intimately sharing her story and creativity as well as sharing her passion for advocacy.

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