JENNY CHU : Featured Artist

YEABU'S HOMECOMING : A Documentary Report from Sierra Leone by Jenny Chu

Bio : Jenny Chu (half Malaysian) recently earned her master's degree from U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. After spending years as a still photographer, she recently shifted her focus to documentary film. For her photographic work, she has traveled extensively, documenting the ethnic minority groups of China, the massive changes overtaking Shanghai, and the struggles of those in war-torn and poverty-stricken African countries.

I met Jenny in 2001 when she exhibited her black and white photographs of interior China at the lightgallery. Jenny hails from California and has traveled extensively to China, documenting the vast landscapes and peoples from the minorities, and also the contrasts of modern Shanghai, where she has relatives. She comes across as a shy and unassuming person but tenaciously streetwise and intelligent. After all, traveling alone across Africa and China has made her knowledgeable and focused in her work, as a still photographer.


Watch her latest video (click the link above), following Yeabu's journey, a farmer from Sierra Leone, who suffers from obstetric fistula, a common problem in Third World countries, to Freetown to receive surgery from a team of doctors funded by Mercy Ships.

I found it highly informative and well put together.

Bravo, Jenny!