Jaydee, Filipino, Rice Face, 2016. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon
More Artbound
Cindy Shermans Cinematic Cosmos
Through the Lens of Charles Fletcher Lummis
Urban Rez: Voices of Native American Actors
1 of 6
next
Jaydee Dizon was born in Pampanga, a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines, just north of Manila Bay. The region's two main industries are farming and fishing, and rice, corn and sugar cane are its principal crops.
Every morning, she would wake up around 6 a.m., get dressed and then pour water buffalo, or Carabao, milk and salt crystals onto her bowl of rice. As a child, this breakfast signified a good start to the day. Today, the memory of this rice-based meal has become part of her cultural identity as a Filipina living in Southern California. It has even inspired her to explore the relationship between grains and cultural heritage in a photography series.
For documentary project Identity Series: Our Home Grains, Dizon has embarked on an engaging series of portraits of women from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds photographed with their faces sprinkled with a grain (or other staple food) that is part of their cultural identity. The idea came to Dizon in 2014 when she was taking a documentary photography class at Venice Arts, a non-profit neighborhood arts center, and was instructed to create a self-portrait. As a photographer specializing in landscapes, she was struggling to come up with an idea for a portrait series and found herself at an artistic roadblock. At one point she was amusing herself by pouring some jasmine rice on her face. In this moment of playfulness, she understood her strong connection to this rice of her childhood, and her image Rice Face was born. Soon she realized that, just as rice was an integral part of her identity, grains could define cultural identity for others too.
Rocky, Filipino, Mestizo and Yaqui, Amaranth Face. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon
--
--
Dizon proposed the idea of a series of similar portraits of women from different cultural backgrounds to Kathy Gallegos, director of Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park, and an exhibition was scheduled for summer of 2016. She invited 19 culturally diverse women to choose a specific grain that played a role in their cultural upbringing and then write a brief statement about their relationship with the grain. As the project progressed, however, she began to realize that there were some problems with her premise. Rice and wheat are staples in many cultures, and a number of women selected the same grain for their portraits. Dizon had imagined a series with a diversity of grains alongside the faces. More significantly, many of the women who wanted to participate in her project were of mixed backgrounds, so they had relationships with several grains. And others identified themselves more strongly with not just cereal crops but pulses, beans and other staple foods, sometimes with little connection to their ethnic heritage. At this point, Dizon admits, I realized that the project was not about me or my ideas anymore. It was about them.
Maria, Mexican, Pinto Bean Face. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon
The 20 portraits created so far in the Home Grains series share a uniformity of composition. Each subject is photographed lying on her back with eyes closed and hair fanning out to frame the face. Each face has been peppered with a handful or two of rice, wheat, corn or beans of different sizes and colors. The grains are spread out in abstract patterns over the women's skin - rough against smooth, light against dark - and become embedded in their hair or form halos encircling their heads. There is an aesthetic richness in the variety of tones, textures and compositions created by the pouring of hard, dried grains onto living, breathing skin - one that echoes the cultural richness of the Los Angeles area, that, Dizon notes, people from 140 countries speaking 86 languages call home. For many of these people, even after generations of living in the United States, food provides a comforting, almost umbilical, connection to their ethnic motherland.
Mackenzie, Irish, German, Dutch, Scottish and English, Oat Face, 2016. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon
For Mackenzie, whose cultural roots lie in Ireland, Scotland, the Netherlands and Germany and whose mother, Shannon, is another of Dizon's subjects, the choice of grain was simple. Oats and oatmeal in particular have been a constant in my growing up, she explains. Not only have I prepared oatmeal for breakfast at least a few days out of the week for as long as I can remember, but Ive also used them in baking and even topically. Oats are a symbol of comfort and sustenance for me.
Susan, Cameroonian-American, Maize Face, 2016. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon
For Susan, whose father is from Cameroon and mother is American with Anglo-Scottish ancestry, it is maize that bonds her to her West African heritage. I grew up in Cameroon where many of my favorite dishes were based on maize - an affordable and creatively used staple throughout the country. The traditional dish of my fathers tribe (the Wimbum people of the northwest grasslands) is fufu and jama-jama - a stiff ball of corn flour porridge paired with spicy, cooked greens and eaten with the hands. Cameroons maize is widely cultivated by millions of subsistence and small-scale farmers, including my father who enjoys growing maize in his retirement. Conversations with my parents often catalog the seasons, farming cycles, and harvest yields.
Korean American Hannah chose barley, remembering fondly, Growing up in a traditional Korean household, my mom would add barley to rice to make sure that I have a much more nutritious meal.
Hannah, Korean, Barley Face, 2015. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon
For some women, the selection
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Jaydee, Filipino, Rice Face, 2016. | Photo: Courtesy of Jaydee Dizon 
