About
Tshab Her
#itspronouncedcha
Biography
Born to refugee parents in Winfield, Illinois in 1991, Tshab Her activates her practice as an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Chicago, Illinois. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio arts from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2016 and has participated in local residencies such as the LAUNCH Invitational Residency of the Chicago Artist Coalition and The Overlook. She is currently an active member and co-collaborator at the Patch Residence where she creates space for storytelling and intentionality within the community.
Artist Statement
Through the use of embroidery, installation, language, clothing, social media, and performance, my work engages the tension of belonging by confronting and rejecting my internalization of the white gaze, religious trauma, body dysmorphia, sexuality, family bondage, and patriarchal structures. The work I create informs my identity as a second generation Hmong-American woman searching for my authentic self. In the struggle to break free from erasure and displacement, I use my voice with urgency by reclaiming space through storytelling and kinship. My work / my body is a self-love practice, blending colors and words into my everyday life as an act of radical resistance against white supremacy.
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"In listening to Hmong women, I also read their narratives as texts that do not reveal a truth about the past but rather work to expose history's gaps. The narratives constitute a decolonial practice of communicating how the past is always there as an interwoven network or repertoire of memories." // Excerpt from Ma Vang's essay titled "Rechronicling Histories: Toward a Hmong Feminist Perspective" in Claiming Place: On the Agency of Hmong Women edited by Chia Youyee Vang, Faith Nibbs, and Ma Vang