Biography
Jo SiMalaya Alcampo is an interdisciplinary artist born in Maynila the capital of the Philippines and raised in Malvern in the heart of Scarborough. She creates interactive mixed media projects that explore multiple and intersecting oppressions, cultural/body memory, and the healing of intergenerational soul wounds. Jo's practice integrates storytelling, installation-based art, and electroacoustic soundscapes.
As a community-based artist, Jo has developed projects with queer youth, consumer/survivors of the mental health system, and migrant domestic workers. Jo studied at OCAD University and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Honours in Integrated Media. Working with advisors in the Aboriginal Visual Culture Program inspired Jo to reconnect with her roots. For her undergraduate thesis project, she travelled to the Cordillera mountains in the Philippines, and met with elders and indigenous rights organizations to learn how artists can develop an ethical code of conduct when incorporating Indigenous Cultural Knowledge into their work. One response to this ongoing inquiry is the installation: Singing Plants Reconstruct Memory.
Jo is based in Toronto with work presented by 401 Richmond, Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria), FADO Performance Art Centre, Images Festival, Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Kapisanan Centre, Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, Nuit Blanche, CBC/Radio Canada International, and XPACE Cultural Centre.
Jo's writing and multimedia art have been published in TOK 6: Writing the New Toronto, INCITE! Journal of Experimental Media & Radical Aesthetics, Fireweed Women’s Literary & Cultural Journal, and Pinoy Sa Canada. Jo is an emerging playwright with plays produced by Carlos Bulosan Theatre and performed at Tales from the Flipside.
As a community-based artist, Jo has developed projects with queer youth, consumer/survivors of the mental health system, and migrant domestic workers. Jo studied at OCAD University and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Honours in Integrated Media. Working with advisors in the Aboriginal Visual Culture Program inspired Jo to reconnect with her roots. For her undergraduate thesis project, she travelled to the Cordillera mountains in the Philippines, and met with elders and indigenous rights organizations to learn how artists can develop an ethical code of conduct when incorporating Indigenous Cultural Knowledge into their work. One response to this ongoing inquiry is the installation: Singing Plants Reconstruct Memory.
Jo is based in Toronto with work presented by 401 Richmond, Antimatter Film Festival (Victoria), FADO Performance Art Centre, Images Festival, Inside Out Toronto LGBT Film and Video Festival, InterAccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Kapisanan Centre, Mayworks Festival of Working People and the Arts, Nuit Blanche, CBC/Radio Canada International, and XPACE Cultural Centre.
Jo's writing and multimedia art have been published in TOK 6: Writing the New Toronto, INCITE! Journal of Experimental Media & Radical Aesthetics, Fireweed Women’s Literary & Cultural Journal, and Pinoy Sa Canada. Jo is an emerging playwright with plays produced by Carlos Bulosan Theatre and performed at Tales from the Flipside.
Still from "the old world is dying, but a new world is being born..." (click image for more info)
