Dora Lam on Turning the Energy of Jazz into Real Time Artwork, Being A Communitarian and Creating Conversations

Hailing from London, Dora Lam is a socially engaged artist, communitarian and live painter who has made a name for herself for many years as she explores avenues through identity, diaspora, and heritage. She explores how artmaking can sidestep  communication barriers and seeks ways to empower personal histories whilst championing community, collaboration and public engagement. Dora has also been a Resident Artist at the Jazz Café Camden since 2019 where she paints live during performances, and she is a community organiser and trustee at ESEA Community Centre as well as a co-founder of the ESEA Archives book club.

New Wave Magazine were able to chat with Dora Lam about her art, residency at the Jazz Café and what might be coming next for her.

Credit: Susanne Andrews

Hi Dora! How are things going?

On the live painting front, I'm going to be much more active these coming months because the last couple of months I’ve been consumed by my interdisciplinary practice. This other side of my practice is much more community focused and about community engagement, which I guess live painting is as well. I’ve just been very busy curating a program of workshops for the East and Southeast Asian Community Centre in Dalston. That's just wrapped up, so I have more time to dedicate to my live painting now. It’s been a busy time.

Speaking of community, I feel like you have a lot of pieces that you make that centre around community, upbringing, family and culture. Could you give us background history on how growing up was like for you?

I grew up in 80s London, in North London, which, let's say it was a culturally insensitive time. With that experience of assimilation, if you like, it’s given me an instinct to always be examining and comparing these ways of thinking and it’s bred a lot of creativity because it makes me notice any gaps or rifts or ruptures in cultural practices. One of them being the fact that there’s a lack of east and Southeast Asian histories, heritage and meaningful encounters with those histories in mainstream historical narratives. So, that's where a lot of my work surrounding identity and heritage stems from.

Was painting and sculpting something always you enjoyed doing or was it something that you found on later in life?

I've always loved it. I was always known as the arty drawing kid in school. But growing up with Asian parents who really prioritised seeking a much more financially stable and secure way of life, I just defaulted to not taking that direction because I didn't really consider it as a choice really until much later on in life. After a 15-year career in tech, I kind of realised this and decided to kind of steer my own ship. And so, that's when I went into art full-time. But I had started live painting before I quit that career, and it was the live painting that really catalysed that.

When it comes to your style, I feel like it must be difficult to find your own artistic flair or the thing that makes you feel the most joy and happiness or a representation of you. Did your niche or art style come naturally or through practice?

With the live painting, it's funny because the live painting strand of my practice behaves very differently from the other parts of my practice, which I'm very thankful for. Live painting is something that I try and do completely intuitively and working instinctively, which means that I try not to over analyse at any point. I try to really be hyper present when I'm performing live and only take in really what's around me, like the music, the lighting, the atmosphere, audience, energy, all that kind of stuff. But obviously, probably how I felt leading up to that moment during the week is going to influence the piece I end up making as well.

With the live painting front, the aim is to work with this energy, trying to embrace this rawness, which I think is what also people appreciate from going to a live show. The fact that it can't be replicated and the fact that it might be imperfect in many ways, but it's just about being there. Just humans in a room and being present. The live painting is very much an intuitive kind of way of working, whereas the other sides of my practice require much more emotional labour, research, time, marinating on ideas or conversations with people.

How do you decide who gets the painting afterwards? Is it given to a fan or does the artist take it?

Sometimes the musician will buy it. Most of the time it goes to someone in the audience, because often people who have watched the painting emerge would like to have the painting in the home as a reminder or as a memento to either a memory of special moment or occasion, which is really nice because it's something that's very personal for them. And that's how I think I place value on things as well; how personal and how sentimental something is. And it's interesting for me to be making physical work, which I sell. In live painting, I'm engaging with the music audience, as opposed to the audience in the art world, which tends to have its own system of working, and it tends to be more elitist whereas the music crowd is not. And I love that about what I do. It means I can't charge a lot for my paintings, but it also means my paintings get to go to really happy homes, who really appreciate it, rather than it being some kind of tax haven or something. [laughs]

That’s so much nicer than going to a gig and just taking a photo while you're there and to instead be able to take a physical piece of that moment that nobody else will be able to have.

I see that you enjoy showcasing your heritage and merging things like food with your culture as well. So, how did the idea of making the clay dumplings first come about?

That was a project I did that started off very small. I started doing this with my parents upon realising that as a family, we don't really have any heirlooms because of my parent’s history as immigrants. We don't have any physical belongings which really tell stories of our ancestral histories. I had this urge to make tangible these ephemeral things like stories and memories that come up in fleeting ways and conversations and somehow make that tangible. So, we as a family, we often sit down and make dumplings together. One day I just said let's do the same thing we always do, but let's use clay instead. And my parents didn't really question it, they just embraced it and went ahead with it. We all played the same roles we normally do. My mum's handling the pastry and I'm usually helping fold and fill. And we stepped into those same roles but because we were then suddenly engaged in the act of art making, the conversation was completely different because even though it was art making, it was very familiar for them, and it wasn't an intimidating thing to do. So, the conversation that I recorded was all spontaneous, it wasn't scripted. I started asking my mum questions like ‘where did you actually first learn to do this?’ As we were making, we were recognising it as a craft in a way. She just delved into family history and stories which I'd never heard before. So, realising that it was such a powerful tool for creating conversations that can sidestep these barriers of communication like language or the reluctance to talk about the past sometimes because it's complicated by trauma, poverty or politics, that act of art making managed to sidestep that.

That act of making, because I recorded it and I also had the clay dumplings, I had this multifaceted way of going out in the world. It was on Grayson Perry's Art Club over lockdown  as a feature on that show. And then the filming of the conversation was also shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art during the London Short Film Festival. It had this peculiar way of finding its way out into the world. And also, inspired by what I did with my parents, I then took it into the public realm, and I ran workshops to engage the public in the same kind of activity. The results were quite moving and always consistent in that it just sparked a lot of conversation that normally wouldn't have an easy way of coming out.

That’s really fascinating. It’s just one of those things that I feel like children of immigrant parents will understand when they ask these kinds of questions when doing something so mundane like filling a dumpling, wrapping a samosa or peeling vegetables. And your mum reveals this story of when she was a child and you’re just thinking ‘why have you never told me this?’

It's really nice that that happened really organically and pushed so many other conversations for people to have with their own parents as well and talk about their childhood because they had such a different life compared to us. I love the idea of the dumplings in particular holding a historical prominence in culture and your family as a skill being passed down through generations. What are some things you’ll pass down to your children when they’re old enough to learn?

One thing I've been doing is focusing on language. My partner is English/Irish, so I have two boys who are of mixed heritage. It was important for me to pass on the language. I would say in almost a distanced kind of way, I mean obviously language is the key to really understanding a culture more deeply, but I also think that being bilingual is just an amazing skill for anyone to have. It’s enabled me to have a dual lens in life. Imagine thinking about the world as you do now but doubling it up and having that other way of looking at it. And I think that's kind of like a superpower. So, I think it's important that I can pass that bilingual state of mind to my kids. That was always a priority. I speak Cantonese with them every day. And I will obviously be trying to embrace creative expression with them because I think that, you know, with my own upbringing, I never really viewed art making as a thing of value, and that will be something that I instil in my children, being an artist myself and having been on this journey.

I wanted to talk about the London brick art pieces that you made that looked like the takeaway tubs. I thought that was a really cool exhibition that you did. My first impression of seeing it was along the lines of how London is built by immigrants.

Yeah, that's a really nice interpretation.

What did you want viewers to feel when they saw that exhibition?

I think there are so many ways of reading that, but my personal take was just wanting to take something that's so normally discarded and just seen as rubbish. And I think that Chinese takeaways don't even have a good rep in the UK in terms of quality of food or health because it's a cuisine that's almost been bastardised and completely redesigned for Western palates. It’s such an interesting thing. My dad was a takeaway owner, and I worked in his takeaway for many years so, it's been a big part of our lives and the hospitality industry in general for Chinese communities in the UK. And with that piece, I just wanted to take something that's not really considered, not really thought of, not really ever seen in contemporary art and represent that in some way. And I also like the idea of the box as an empty void and filling that and the end result being something that's very weighty. There's weight, there's substance to it, which I hope represents a lot of things which just aren't said and untold. And then the idea behind colouring it as London brick using pigments is to make a comment on how takeaways are essentially the fabric of London life. I think after I made that piece, there have been other writers and artists who have been trying to raise attention to the takeaway culture and life as takeaway kids. That's been nice to see.

Touching on that as well, the bastardisation and Westernisation of different cultures and ethnicities and in particular, Chinese culture. I wanted to talk a little bit about the article you contributed to talking about tackling anti-Asian hate in the UK. Apart from your cultural heritage, were there any thoughts or feelings that you felt that made you want to be a part of that?

There was a surge of community, community organising and political activation within east and Southeast Asian communities because there was a surge of anti-Asian racism due to Covid. And it was actually around that time that my work became a bit more politically engaged as well. I think it just happened at the same time, not necessarily as a result of. It felt like there was this zeitgeist happening around then. And the way that these pieces fit together, I guess, links to visibility because one of the issues during the COVID-19 pandemic is that these race hate crimes were under-reported and not taken seriously. There was a whole east and Southeast Asian community wanting to shout about it and wanting to raise awareness and being politically active. There was a lot of activism happening, and it was all enabled because everyone was spending a lot of time indoors and on their phones as well. There was a lot of digital community organising, which a lot of those community groups are still organising today. So, it's nice that a lot of the work from that period is still alive and kicking.

Do you think you will ever make your work be more politically charged in the future?

I think my work is politically charged as it is, but not necessarily so directly relating to racism. My work, especially my socially engaged work, is much more focused on ideas of heritage and archives. So how our histories and heritage are represented and looking for ways to self-archive. And I guess it’s political in that I'm questioning how that fits into the wider narrative of history or UK history.

With your residency at The Jazz Café doing live paintings, was the idea approached to you, or did you think that maybe this was something that you thought would be a cool idea and you approached them with it?

It's a nice full circle story with that one. So, when I first started live painting, I started with doing a sketch. And actually, the first time I did a sketch was at The Jazz Cafe. And it's because I had a friend who was asking if anyone had any pieces of art lying around that they could sell off in an art auction to raise funds for charity. I didn't have anything to contribute, but I said that I'm going to a show that night, so I'll just do a sketch while I'm there and I'll give it to them. And I went to a lot of shows because I dabbled as a musician while I was working as well. I loved going to see jazz, so I went to The Jazz Café quite a lot.

When I did my first sketch there, there was such a response in the audience around me. I was just standing in the audience and drawing, doing a sketch. And also, even from the band at the end of the show as well. A couple who was standing behind me watched me do it and just bought it immediately on the spot. And I was like, that's great because that's for charity anyway. And that's because of that response. It was really the energy from people who saw me doing it that encouraged me to do it more and do it bigger. And then it kind of just snowballed. I ended up doing paintings on canvas at a lot of grassroots venues and underground clubs. Places like Total Refreshment Centre, which was kind of the space which is recognised as where the UK jazz scene bubbled up from. A lot of the musicians who are in that scene were doing recordings there and were connected to that venue. So yeah, underground clubs, Church of Sound... I started doing it in more venues around London and as it gained momentum, The Jazz Café then emailed me saying, ‘hey, would you like to just come back and do this on a regular basis?’ And that was really nice to receive that, because obviously, definitely, yes! But also, the fact that it started there, it was really great.

What have been some of your favourite performances and the paintings from that to date?

That one's always really a hard one to answer. Last year's highlights, probably the reggae gigs I painted at. Black Uhuru and I don't know why, but it seems like, and maybe I've only opened my eyes to this recently, but a reggae crowd are really passionate, and it's so nice to just be in an audience with so much love. So that's wonderful. I've also painted quite a few musicians who hail from Latin America. And again, I'm really attracted to painting in those atmospheres where the audience is just so enthusiastic and just absolutely have music just in their blood. And you can feel that when you're there when you're immersed in that. So there have been shows like that. I think there was an Agnes Nunes show that the audience were just so full of love again, and they were young female musicians. That was really nice to see that support. I also always love supporting Tomorrow's Warriors because I'm a big fan of the work that they do because they provide jazz training for young musicians free of cost to them, which I think is an amazing thing that they do. So, I support them every year. And then one particular one is Jaimie Branch as well who passed away, I think it was a year or two ago. But she was an amazing trumpeter, and I was so lucky to capture that show that she did at the Jazz Café. A very spiritual energy.

I think that's the kind of thing I like to tap into when there's this unseen energy from musicians and to try and capture that visually. And to just be immersed in that is a real blessing to be able to do that or to be in a position to try and do that. The painting from that will always have a special memory. I've made a few prints of it for her family as well. And I think that it's nice that they have an emotional connection to the piece of art like that. Again, it's so personal. A highlight from a few years ago, the Banger Factory. Just because at the time I was painting a lot and as a result musicians just become friends. A lot of the musicians in that band are just great guys and friendly faces. It was just a great vibe. It was a really enjoyable thing to be part of that.

Did your own musical roots begin in jazz as well? Is that why you're so drawn to that genre of music?

I think I'm drawn to it because I was never trained as a jazz musician. And it's always something that has this allure to me because of that. So, it's almost like I'm yearning to be in it and be a part of that or to practice jazz in some way. And because I was never musically trained to do that, I guess I found my way into it as a visual artistic way But my musical roots are not jazz at all. My first structured way of experiencing music was going to piano lessons and that, I hate to say, but that kind of typical Asian upbringing of being trained as a classical pianist up to grade eight from a young age. [laughs] I'm surprised it didn't destroy my love for music at a later age because it was kind of forced upon me. It helped, I guess. No, it definitely helps! I'm thankful for it now.

When are you painting live next and what else do you have going on?

The next one will be Friday 28th of March, I'm going to be painting STR4TA. And then Monday 14th of April will be Eek-A-Mouse, and then Tuesday the 22nd and 23rd of April will be Joshua Idahin and that will be a fundraising show. Yeah. Further into the future, I am going to be resuming my arts education at the Royal College of Art in September, where I'll be doing a Master's in painting. So, it'll be interesting to see how that feeds back into my practice.

Stay in touch with Dora Lam on Instagram and check out The Jazz Café's programme of upcoming shows at https://thejazzcafe.com/whats-on/