Throughout Albert Chong’s work, themes of archival, history, and honoring and examining traditions abound with great resonance. In my perusal of his art, I was particularly struck by two series: Color Still Lifes and Botanical and Other Observations. The first series is a compilation of family photographs, historical artifacts, and other images which have been arranged with organic objects such as flowers, fruits and animal skulls. Using photographic processes such as in camera superimposition and overlaid text, Chong sets these images and artifacts in a new perspective, offering a window to the viewer in which the past is not only a frozen moment to glimpse, but a vibrant universe laden with mysteries and inviting both entrance and introspection. In Botanical and Other Observations, Chong offers a distinct and fresh perspective as well, but in this case it is focused more on plant and animal life rather than human life, although the latter is included too. The detritus of living beings and organic matter, in addition to the wonderful, sometimes almost gruesome absurdity of life in the process of growing, as with pig fetuses and germinating avocado seeds, is viscerally represented in this series.
Over the course of engaging with these photographs, I noticed that a certain fruit, or remnants of it, had recurred across the two series, and in quite distinct contexts. This fruit is called the tomatillo (or the tomatilla in Spanish sometimes, as Chong names it) and it is a member of the nightshade family of plants, related to commonly consumed plants such as tomatoes, potatoes and peppers, as well as to the poisonous nightshade, or belladonna, which is used as an ingredient in some medicinal drugs. Native to Mexico, where it is often called “tomato verde,” the tomatillo is a green fruit, close in size to a large cherry, with a meaty texture and a bright, acidic flavor. The fruit grows to maturity inside of a leafy, thin and papery husk that has to be removed once prepping a tomatillo for consumption, as the husk is inedible. Tomatillos can be eaten raw or cooked, and they are used in a variety of dishes, such as bases for chili sauces and salsa, and additions to soups, stews, guacamole, and salads. They are a Mexican staple and are increasingly popular in the United States and elsewhere due to their versatility, flavor and eye-catching pop of color.
In Chong’s series, Color Still Lifes, tomatillos appear at the edges of a few of the photographs but the fruits seem to be front and center in “In Memory of James Byrd, 2001,” where several of them lay atop a dilapidated license plate, with decaying roses arranged at the borders of the photo. James Byrd Jr. was an African American man from Jasper County, Texas who was brutally murdered by three white supremacists in 1998. His death and the horrific manner in which it took place caused reverberations across the United States and internationally, and led to the passing of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. This act expanded the preexisting 1969 U.S. federal hate crime law to encompass crimes motivated by the victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, and removes the previous iteration’s prerequisite that a victim must have been engaged in a federally protected activity such as voting. Chong states that the license plate in the photo belongs to the truck that the murderers used in Byrd Jr.’s death. In arranging these tomatillos and decaying roses over this infamous license plate, a symbol and remnant of a heinous act of racist violence, Chong pays tribute to the memory of James Byrd Jr. and reframes the object involved in his murder, while appearing to question the ways in which our remembrances of figures like Byrd Jr. may be problematized and compress the truth of their personhood and lives.
In “Tomatilla, Dessicated Outer Covering” this theme of an afterlife and archival of organic matter persists. With a bright yet soft light placed over the husk of the tomatillo, the veins and lines crossing over it are coaxed into sharp relief, giving it the appearance of some intricate and precious artifact. Interestingly, fossils of tomatillo husks from 52 million years ago gave scientists a great deal of insight into the history of the entire nightshade family of plants, thus showing how important it truly is to preserve and pay attention to the organic life around us, and how it is in fact the opposite of commonplace.
Works Cited
Chen, Angus. “52 Million-Year-Old Tomatillo Fossils Rewrite Veggie History.” NPR, NPR, 10 Jan. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/01/10/509171881/52-million-year-old-tomatillo-fossil-rewrites-veggie-history.
Chong, Albert. Tomatilla, Desiccated Outer Covering.
Chong, Albert. In Memory of James Byrd, 2001. Color Still Lifes. https://www.albertchong.com/color-still-lifes/ct6hue4epqh7ivyh37jgifz7hy0e2q, accessed 3 October 2020.
Delany, Alex. “What Are Tomatillos, Anyway?” Bon Appétit, Bon Appétit, 19 Mar. 2018,
www.bonappetit.com/story/what-are-tomatillos.
“Tomatillos.” CUESA, cuesa.org/food/tomatillos.