BIOGRAPHY
Jen Goya is a new media artist based in Honolulu. She received her MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts and a BA in Video from Hampshire College. Many of her videos examine the effects of tourism and cultural commodification. She experiments with narrative storytelling using oral history and DVDs.
Artist Statement Short / Long (PDF)
*Goya Can is a self-portrait. The can's facade mirrors a certain famous brand of food, replacing it's canned contents with a lesser known vegetable (bitter melon) known as 'goya' in the Okinawan dialect. The packaging and selling of 'Goya-Bitter Melon' acknowledges the unfortunate occupation of Okinawa by the U.S. military for over five decades. The perversion of marketing an exotic vegetable symbolizes the normalcy of colonialism. (3 sec, 2008)