Chameleon
Davida Kidd. Digital Print mounted on foam core, vintage wooden base, plastic pieces. 2023.
“Chameleon” represents a synthesis of multifaceted cultural influences, each with its own set of traditions, narratives, and rituals. Drawing on iconography from two cultures, I’ve chosen elements that resonate with me personally to explore themes of identity, migration, and the complex interplay of tradition, adaptation intersection and divergence.
My immigrant Protestant ancestors on my father’s side came to Canada from Ireland. My Jewish mother’s family immigrated from Russia/Poland and Austria to New York state, all in the mid to late 1800s. Although my family focused on the privileged and “British” aspects of our history, I have always felt to have a pluralistic identity, passed down to me through anecdotal stories and residual cultural dispositions. It may take several generations away from immigration for some to say that they are simply Canadian.
My piece consists of an illustrative female image that represents myself, my mother, and my 2 grandmothers combined. In the background is the faint cover of a Jewish Prayer Book (siddur). The figure holds in her fingers Beith, the 2nd letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. This letter signifies the number 2 and represents the beginning of duality and the transition from absolute “Oneness”. The figure holds a representation of a mummy from a tomb in Luxor, Egypt that my great uncle on my father’s side purchased in a market in Cairo while serving with the #7 Canadian General Hospital in WWI; and then donated to to the Vancouver Museum in 1922. The story unravels as I hold his wrapped body. One letter has been changed in his name, “Panechates,” to represent how original names mutate during times of immigration. The caricature of the bird sitting on my arm I see as a colonialist mouthpiece. The goats leaping above the figure are pulled from the Kidd Irish family crest. Several different crests exist for the Kidd surname, one bearing the motto “Astonished by Nothing”. I have always chosen to interpret this as “Nothing Fails to Surprise Me” or that “Everything is Possible”, even that which appears to be impossible or illogical.
I feel left with many fragments and stories that have drifted down from both sides of my family. This piece represents those fragments full of unfinished details, cut ties, and the loss of cultural traditions through the blending of nationalities.