Jaguar Jonze has become a firebrand in the Australian music industry over the past few years, at a cost.
Content warning: This story contains references to sexual assault.
The Taiwanese Australian singer and multidisciplinary artist is known for her defiant brand of alt-pop-rock but has had to play a dual role as an artist and as a whistleblower and survivor of sexual assault.
It's something she has been reckoning with ahead of her Sydney Opera House debut for Vivid LIVE, part of the Sydney-wide Vivid festival.
The genre-bending performance will blend music from her debut album BUNNY MODE and two earlier EPs with film and shibari, a Japanese rope bondage practice. Titled The Art of Broken Pieces, the show is a reclamation of bodily and artistic autonomy for Jonze, who has been unable to speak freely about her alleged assault and has found herself increasingly defined by her advocacy over her artistry.
"A lot of people have said to me, 'Aren't you tired of telling your story?' But the truth is, I don't think I've been able to tell my story at all and I still don't think I'm allowed to [because of] defamation laws and due process," says Jonze.
"The politics around all of this [advocacy] work has meant that I'm reduced to particular forms of communication and expression, and art and music [are] integral ones."
Dealing with adversity, and the reclamation of power, are themes at the heart of Jonze's music, and this one-off performance work is set to be her most ambitious yet.
"[The show] is about what I went through to get to a place where I wanted to speak up and use my voice to bring awareness to the injustice that exists in the Australian music industry, and how, if we work together, a lot of that systemic abuse and discrimination can be changed for the future," says Jonze.
"So I am telling the story of my sexual assault in my show, but I'm not telling it, I'm showing it."
Finding her voice
In 2019, Jonze went public with allegations of sexual assault by two music producers in a Brisbane nightclub. The following year she tweeted a series of post-it notes, prompting an outpouring of messages from other artists and music workers sharing similar experiences.
The allegations have since become the subject of court proceedings, which are ongoing. Meanwhile, Jonze has become a champion for improved safety and equity in the music industry, taking on an advisory role to the federal government and contributing to an independent review into sexual harm, harassment and discrimination in the industry.
In response, federal Arts Minister Tony Burke earlier this year announced the establishment of the Centre for Arts and Entertainment Workplaces, which aims to address sexual harassment and bullying by setting minimum standards for safety across the sector and basing government funding on compliance with those standards.
While Jonze's advocacy has been pivotal in effecting systemic change, because of Australia's rigid defamation laws, she hasn't been able to fully share her story.
Jonze reported the allegations to Queensland police in June 2019 but the accused were only charged in 2021, two years later. The case has since appeared before courts and has had several preliminary hearings over the last year, with the trial scheduled for November.
It's a protracted process and one that has made it difficult for Jonze to move on personally and artistically.
"I went into 2023 feeling quite trapped because I felt like I couldn't move on from this period of my life … knowing that I have to go through something extremely traumatic again at the end of the year," she says.
"The reason I'm putting so much of my soul into this Vivid performance is that I've decided to make the most of this year and not allow other people to take away my voice. The only way I can do that is through my art and music."
Fighting to reclaim her artistic identity
As a prominent voice in the campaign against sexual violence in the Australian music industry, Jonze has also had to publicly confront her experiences of childhood sexual and physical abuse and PTSD.
Developing The Art of Broken Pieces has been pivotal in her artistic and personal reckoning with that trauma.
"I had gone through so much in my life that I was able to find peace with through art and music. But when I realised that the very thing that was bringing me peace and healing was also inviting more abuse into my life due to the nature of the industry … I was really angry," she says.
"I had worked so hard to escape the cycle of abuse, and here I was falling into it again. It seemed impossible to try to manoeuvre a career outside of it, and that's why I spoke up as soon as I started learning there were others in the same situation.
"It wasn't okay with me and I was determined to do everything in my power to make a difference."
But speaking out has complicated Jonze's career and opportunities as an artist.
"I'm seen as a troublemaker; someone who tries to disrupt power and the status quo. I'm realising that by speaking out, I've allowed myself to be put into other boxes, and I now have very obvious ceilings over my head as a person of colour and as a woman as well.
"I just want to be able to make those cultural contributions and be valued for those contributions as an artist again," she says.
Inherited resilience
Despite the pressure of an ongoing court case, Jonze's disposition is one of resilience and fortitude.
They are qualities Jonze says she inherited from her Taiwanese mother, who she affectionately describes as a "pocket rocket".
"She comes up to my shoulders but she's a go-getter, that's for sure. She's resilient, strong, determined." Jonze pauses, then adds, "and relentless".
Jonze was born Deena Lynch and spent the first seven years of her life in Yokohama, Japan, where her Australian father was working at the time. When her parents' relationship broke down, she was forced to move to Australia, where she holds citizenship by birthright.
But a prohibitive mix of immigration and citizenship policies meant that Jonze's mother couldn't access residency.
"My dad didn't want to have me; he wanted to move on to another marriage, which meant that both my mum and I couldn't stay on his Japanese work visa anymore," says Jonze.
"It was a really complicated time. We fell through the cracks of politics due to the nature of our citizenships."
She describes her life between the ages of seven and 14 as "turbulent".
"My childhood was a lot of court cases with my mum coming back and forth [between Taiwan, Japan and Australia] as much as she could to try to stay here," Jonze says.
"She spent everything to try and come here."
Jonze settled in Brisbane, where she is still based, and ended up in alternative systems of care while her mother fought to gain permanent residency.
"I didn't find myself in homes that accepted who I was; I was seen as a burden. It was very obvious that I stuck out as an Asian child, and I wouldn't say I was always in safe environments either," she says.
"But my mum never abandoned me. She was an absolute fighter and she was there for me throughout that whole period, whether or not she was allowed to do it at her full capacity."
For Jonze's mother, it was a brutal and arduous journey to be reunited with her daughter.
Jonze explains: "Immigration in the 90s was really strict. The Commonwealth was arguing that the welfare system is really great in Australia and that I didn't need my mother [because] the state could raise me, so they didn't need to grant citizenship to her.
"They also wanted to disprove my mother as a fit mother, and that can be such a cycle because you have to spend everything you have to fight the laws and the system, which put her in a place of extreme poverty.
"She pushed and fought that really hard up until the last appeal in the Supreme Court … and finally succeeded.
"She was an amazing mother who did the best she could, but just due to the lack of support and resources, we had to go through a really turbulent time."
Discovering music
After seven years of legal battles, Jonze's mother was finally granted permanent residency.
Her mother picked up odd jobs to pay the bills; although she was a trained opera singer and piano teacher, she didn't speak fluent English and her accreditations weren't recognised in Australia.
"I was not allowed to listen to music growing up and [Mum] was really determined to keep me away from arts and music because she didn't want me to have the life she had," says Jonze.
"I've never heard her sing and I've never really heard her play. There's an unpacked sadness in there for her."
Save for the odd Celine Dion or Bryan Adams cassette tape her mum would play in the car, music was relatively remote for Jonze as a child – her connection with it came later.
"The fact that I became a musician was a big shock [for Mum] and definitely one that took her a while to accept," says Jonze.
"But I think that's what happens when you repress creativity. It has to come out in some way, so it was kind of my rebellion and my only way to survive and express myself."
Jonze really started discovering music as a teenager, when she acquired a "secret" iPod.
She began listening to artists like Omarion, Usher, Ciara and Rihanna and went to her first concert — Paramore — at age 14, around the time her mum got permanent residency.
"I escaped into [music via] computers as a child as a way to exist in a different world and I found a love for a lot of hardcore emo music as well as hardstyle trance and slow-jam R&B."
After that, music became a lifeline for Jonze.
"I turned to music as a way to help take out all that repressed trauma and pain inside my body and put it into another vessel, and I found great catharsis in that. That's how I fell in love with music … and once I found that passion, I couldn't turn away from it.
"I would straight up say music and art saved my life."
The Art of Broken Pieces
Jonze's creativity began with music but she has also developed an art and photography practice.
She works under pseudonyms for each: Spectator Jonze for art and Dusky Jonze for photography. Each plays a different role in reckoning with identity and trauma. She describes Jaguar Jonze, her moniker for music, as a means of healing her relationship with the past and developing self-love; Spectator Jonze is about forging relationships with other trauma survivors through art; and Dusky Jonze is about rebuilding body positivity through photography.
"Because all of my foundations as a child were completely wrong and needed to be deprogrammed and unlearned and rebuilt, all of those different personas have helped me to do that. They feed back into my relationship with myself and further that understanding and processing … to then feel more free, have more healing and give [myself] permission to take space and exist in the world again."
The Art of Broken Pieces will be a chance for Jonze to bring her artistic personas together, while also drawing on cultural practices that are significant to her. The title of the work references the Japanese art of kintsugi, a centuries-old practice whereby broken ceramics are repaired with liquid gold.
The concept resonates with Jonze: "Even if my life can feel like smashed pottery sometimes, I continue to choose to use that liquid gold and mend the pieces back together to allow it to take a new form, and celebrate the rich history of my life and its many different pieces."
She is also incorporating the Japanese art of shibari in her performance, as a way to physically embody her story. It's a practice Jonze discovered when she returned to Japan as an adult to reconnect with her cross-cultural roots.
"Even though I grew up mainly in Australia, my Taiwanese mother lived in Japan for 16 years, so a lot of that culture exists in her, and I spoke to my grandparents in Japanese as well," she says.
"A lot of those Japanese cultures introduced traditions that have been passed on to me, and I think it's out of respect that I continue to pass on those cultures and traditions through my work."
By combining art forms and cultural practices, Jonze says the show is pushing her creative boundaries.
"I think creativity and innovation are really important to allow us to find new ideas and enjoy different forms of expression," she says.
"There are so many amazing artists out there [with] so many rich stories to tell but we're only hearing from a very limited amount.
"I would love to see a place where Australia celebrates its cultures and its many stories, and amplifies and platforms those voices."
Jaguar Jonze: The Art of Broken Pieces is at Sydney Opera House on Thursday, June 1 as part of Vivid LIVE.
