Blue Salmon

Blue Salmon (2016-2020), a multi-series artwork portrays the various emotional states of a salmon who has reached sexual maturity and cannot return to its birthplace in order to reproduce. Blue Salmon represents the struggle to liberate those who are confined within borders. Through ritual and performance, TeeJay strives to challenge the way we express ourselves by abstracting and renewing the language of transparent identity politics within the context of western art history.

A site-specific ceremonial installation offers to liberate those salmon that cannot return home by providing new settlements and impermanent residences for those fish that had lost hope of a safe and suitable breeding ground. When sexual maturity is reached, the impossible journey home begins. Few can tell their own story, as many are under constant duress and demonize one another. Many die before they can enter into a relationship or come to know themselves. The state of being lost creates a pervasive feeling of anxiousness and paranoia in the individual who does not belong. As new cycles and revolutions move forward Blue Salmon creates diasporic homes for diasporic struggles.