Jade Thiraswas is a Thai-American photographer and artist of many skills and passions. She was raised between Louisiana and Southeast Asia, and is currently residing in Upstate New York where she freelances and is assistant to artist and educator Wendy Ewald. Jade received her BFA in photography with an art history minor at Memphis College of Art in 2015, and her MFA in photography & related media at Rochester Institute of Technology in 2018. She has exhibited her work in numerous shows nationally and internationally. Within the last year she was selected to participate in the New York Times Portfolio Review, the Women Photograph Workshop at Photoville,
Angkor Photo Festival Workshops, and was an artist in residence at
The Center for Photography at Woodstock, New York.
She frequently travels to New York City, New Orleans, and Bangkok, Thailand.
My childhood was filled with cultural and geographical shifts, and experiences of
displacement and adaptation. The earliest years of my life were spent living in an isolated
settlement in the deep jungles of Papua, Indonesia near a copper and gold mine where my
father, a Thai immigrant to the United States, worked. Due to these circumstances, I had little
opportunity to interact with other children which taught me how to befriend and appreciate
human beings of all kinds. My first memories are from the walks my Indonesian nanny, Samini,
would take me on every day around our small village and through the jungle where aboriginal
tribes lived. Wrapped tightly around her back with a blanket, she’d carry me with her on little
journeys in which I’d observe with curiosity from behind her shoulders.
I am grateful to have had these types of experiences as a child which taught me to see
the world, and the people in it, without judgement or fear.
* * *Available for commissions, collaborations, and assignments.* * * Upcoming travel: THAILAND: October - November 2019NEW ORLEANS: December - January 2020
CONTACT:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~jadethiraswas@gmail.cominstagram @jadethiraswas ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~RECENT PRESS:
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“Young Cash Karen” by Jade Thiraswas is a Nuanced Glimpse at a Group of Young Burmese Refugees Living in Rochester, New York--
Ain't Bad article