Jackie Dives is a multi-disciplinary artist embracing photography, video, performance, and installation. Through her interconnected bodies of work, Dives uses both auto-ethnography and collaborative storytelling to address themes of social justice, civil rights, trauma, grief, identity and community. Her work has been recognized by the Canada Council for the Arts, the B.C. Arts Council, and the Digital Publishing Awards, and has been exhibited and screened internationally including in venues such as the Burrard Arts Foundation (Vancouver), Gallery Gachet (Vancouver), and the Maysles Documentary Center (New York). Her clients include Time Magazine, The New York Times, The Guardian and others.
How and when did your brand and creative journey come to life?
I have always been an artist. It has been essential for me to create art in order to survive, it is what has kept me going.
What inspires you on a day-to-day basis?
My work is motivated by my grief. I am pushed every day to create images as a way of healing my grief, and to try to act as a witness to the grief of others.
Tell us a bit about your capsule collection with Otto Studio. Why did you choose the patterns? What was your inspiration behind these patterns?
The collection with Otto is made up of colourful and dreamy multiple exposed film photographs of flowers. I love that they can provide a feeling of joy or calm for people by bringing nature into the room, in a gigantic way. They are beautifully natural and ethereal and whimsical. To me, they are like a treat.
What would your advice be to your younger self, knowing what you know now about your career and journey? And to anyone else who is starting out as a creative?
I think I would tell my younger self (and current self) to not second guess my skills and goals. Without context, this can sound a bit hollow, especially considering the current realities of living in the world as it is. Being an artist is mostly not financially viable. But I wasted a lot of time avoiding the truth of who I am, which is to say that I am an artist, through and through, and that it only hurt me, overall, to keep denying that and to keep trying to talk myself out of it.
What does a typical day in your week look like?
There is truly no typical day for me. I might be sitting at the computer for 12 hours straight, two weeks in a row writing a grant, or I might be on assignment making a portrait for The New York Times, or I might be tagging along on whatever it is that someone I’m photographing for my personal project might be doing for the day. The variety is part of what I need in my life in order to feel fulfilled.
