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JESSICA JANE EMMETT

jess@jessica-emmett.com
www.jessica-emmett.com

Carly Beard
Jenny Cooper
Natalie Curtis
Gemma Davis
Sarah Davies
Sam Drake
Amy Dunmore
Andy Ellerby
Jessica Jane Emmett
Lucy Fletcher
Lizzie Flintham
Sarah Genner
Valentina Guarneri
Lesley Hooper
Gregory Howe
Stacey Hubbard
Zoe Humphreys
Katie Jones
Nadia Karmazyn
Gemma Land
Kath Lawrence
Stephaine Lord
Rachel McFarlane
Oona Mae
Clare Massey
Ruth Megitt
Emily Mennerdahl
Jo Mulley
Laura Mulroy
Barnaby Newton
Robert Ng
Rob Parker
Sarah Poynter
Tara Quick
Charlotte Rea
Ellie Rush
Mike Slater
Paul Unsworth
Hannah Cooper Ward
Martin Woodhead
Stephen Zheng Xu

The Search

I was given up for adoption from birth. My birthmother was a Vietnamese Boat person, fleeing to Hong Kong during and after the war. She gave me a name when I was born, Le Bich-Hoong. I was foster for a year a given the name Jessica Jane (JJ), and then adopted at the age of one by a British family. I was then to be known as Jessica Jane Emmett.

People have always asked me if I wanted to find my birthmother and until last year I would have said "no, I'm fine about being adopted" as my stock answer. Now that I am looking for her my work has turned to look at how I feel about being adopted and how my name has changed depending on which family I am with.

I lived in Hong Kong for 16yrs and then moved to the UK. I am neither Chinese, Vietnamese nor British. My work has always been about understanding who I am, and I feel I can only do that by seeing when I have come from.