Jai DuVal (b. 2002, Silver Spring, MD) makes photographs that honor intimacy as a site of power. Her work insists on the sacredness of looking with love. It is in this space that the act of creation itself becomes a form of homecoming.
In weaving together material and memory, DuVal offers an evolving portrait of what it means to be held by history and still move forward. Her work stands as both testament and invitation: a call to see belonging not as something to be found, but as something to be made, again and again, through the tender labor of attention and care.
In weaving together material and memory, DuVal offers an evolving portrait of what it means to be held by history and still move forward. Her work stands as both testament and invitation: a call to see belonging not as something to be found, but as something to be made, again and again, through the tender labor of attention and care.
Education
Bowdoin College
2024
Pensole Lewis College of Design
Apparel Design
2024
Pensole Lewis College of Design
Apparel Design
2024
Unit stills for the short film 'MARCELLINA,' a period set in the Harlem Renaissance starring Aweng Chuol as Marcellina Cárdena’. Not much remains in public record about Cardena beyond a single sentence in a 1924 NYAN editorial. The sentence claims the Cuban woman as being the “biggest clearing house numbers banker in Harlem.”
[More..]
2023
How do you find community in a place you didn't originally call home? What does it take to feel like you belong? What is at stake? These are questions I set out to answer when I began this project in Lewiston, Maine.
[More..]
2023
These images are markes of time, bearing witness to our transitory nature and speaking to our temporality. Our physical presence is ephemeral--a fleeting moment. We are vessels of vitality, deserving of value for our naturally occouring shapes and forms. These images are meant to push back on the judgement that nude bodues are "taboo" and should be hidden out of indignity. Bodies appreciated, briefly.
[More..]
2022
"You can't take the same photo twice"
Process-driven work initiated by a professor who taught me how to love.
[More..]