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Chou, Jessica

Taiwanese American, b. 1985

BiographyJessica Chou makes contemplative images that observe culture, identity, and place. Her series Suburban Chinatown (2013-ongoing) is an exploration of the multicultural communities of Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley, with a specific focus on Chou’s hometown, Monterey Park, which was the continental United States’ first Asian American majority city. Chou’s images in the series depict scenes such as a Sunday morning church choir and its bilingual signage for hymns, or teen boys standing on a street corner wearing a SoCal signature–style of long shorts, high socks, and ankle sneakers. “It tackles the notion of suburban landscape,” she told Its Nice That magazine about the series. “What does it mean to maintain cultural heritage when it is absent from the physical landscape that it originates from?”

Jessica Chou holds a BA in History from University of California, Los Angeles (2008). During college, she was a staff photographer for the student-run newspaper The Daily Bruin where she received many awards and grants for her photojournalism. Chou was shortlisted for Aperture Portfolio Prize in 2020. She regularly photographs for publications such as Marie Claire, Time, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, to name a few. She has been featured in exhibitions at United Nations Headquarters, New York; Museum of Chinese in America, New York; San Francisco International Airport Museum; and others. Her work can also be found in the permanent collection of Tweed Museum of Art, Minnesota.