Jess X. Snow
Jess X. Snow (Chinese: 陈雪; born 1992) is a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker, public artist and poet. Biography. Biography. Jess X. Snow's parents immigrated from Nanchang, China to Canada after the Cultural Revolution. From 2009 to 2013, Snow attended the Rhode Island School of Design and got a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film/Animation/Video and Literary Arts. Snow is currently pursuing an MFA in directing at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Their film and immersive work has been supported with grants and fellowships from the Tribeca Film Institute, Canada Council of the Arts and  commissioned by Adobe, and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific Center. Their murals and political graphics have appeared on walls across the country and on PBS Newshour, The LA Times, during the Women's March on Washington, and in the permanent collection of the Ford Foundation and the Library of Congress. Their children's books titles include The Ocean Calls (forthcoming Kokila/Penguin Randomhouse, written by Tina Cho), and Black Girl Magic (MacmillanUSA, written by Mahogany L. Browne). They are the director and cinematographer of AFTEREARTH, an immersive 3-channel documentary that won Best Experimental Short Award at the Philly Asian American  Film Festival and has screened at a dozen film festivals including Outfest Fusion, CAAMfest, and the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. Their narrative short, Safe Among Stars is currently in post production. Art. Murals and Installations. Featured in the LA Times, "We Always Had Wings" is a community mural project in downtown Los Angeles featuring migration of the endangered Yellow-billed cuckoo and portraits of 15 migrant girls at the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. "Immigration Is Transformation" was on view at Belonging: Before and After the Immigration Act of 1965 at the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American  Experience in Seattle's Chinatown until February 2016 (curated by Minh Nguyen). It is created from layers of hand-cut Japanese kozo paper, wire, and fishing line in 2015. "O Wind, Take Me to My Country" is a mural at the Art Bar Gallery in Kingston, NY on a three-story wall for the 7th Annual O+ Festival. It features a portrait of Safia Elhillo, a Sudanese-Migrant poet. "Ain't I A Women" is a mural finished in fall 2015 in collaboration with Jetsonorama and features portraits of poets Mahogany Browne and T'ai Freedom Ford with Sojourner Truth's  Ain't I a Woman? text. "We Be Darker Than Blue" is a mural installed at the BRIC art space in New York City and portrays two generations of black woman poets: Mahogany Browne and Sonia Sanchez, pioneer of the black arts movement. It is based on the Frida Kahlo painting "The Two Fridas." Poetry. Snow performs and tours nationally for their poetry and spoken word, and has received recognition for it. In 2016, Snow's poem "Hunger Drives The Body into Imagination" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her poem "If Cygnus Were A Refugee" was nominated for Best  of the Net Anthology. Talks. Snow has given artist talks and lectures at Vassar College, TEDx CUNY, Netroots Nation, Wellesley College, Willamette University, Pacific Lutheran University, University of Connecticut, Pacific Northwest College of Art on behalf of Artists Against Police Violence, and Institute of American Indian Arts with Demian DinéYazhi. They also participated in multiple panels and conferences: