Zak Ashburn

All of Me

As a child of both the Filipino diaspora and the South, growing up in the Bible Belt ofEast Tennessee I never really felt comfortable in where I lived as well as in my body or with myself. It’s my home but the South was never what I would call welcoming. Thinking back to all of the good things: the rivers, forest, and loved ones. I don’t miss the politics or the feeling of otherness that I eventually forced onto myself. My early life was a collection of misconceptions and fallacies largely based around how I was being raised and taught to feel about myself in relation to social and cultural constructs. My thinking became colonized, my body and psyche became something alien to me. I always felt pulled between the opposing aspects of myself and never really felt like I had any agency over my own body.All of Meis a body of work that allows me to restore some sense of control over my own body through the ritual of making, and establish a foundation to speak on the decolonization of myself.With the combination of historical Filipino styles of ceramic construction, historical fallacies and references to quilting. Stitched together, each facet combines as a whole to create this body of work that deals with the decolonization and reclamation of myself. This installation speaks on concepts of colonization, authenticity, identity and hybridity through the fusion of juxtaposing aspects to deconstruct and reconstruct parts of me.My body and mind have long been points of conflict for others, imposing themselves onto me. People have always questioned my genuity and authenticity and here I embrace the parts of myself that were so rejected.All of Me legitimizes my experience while embracing points of speculation by asking what makes a quilt, what makes a body, and what makes something authentic. My history is my own and my lived experience dictates who I am andwhat I belong to, not anyone else.