JJZO

Jonathan Jose Zamora Olarte
Director / Cinematographer / Visual Artist

Represented By: VONAS and Barrio 99

(b.1993) Marikina City, Philippines. Jonathan Jose Zamora Olarte is an intermedia artist based in Metro Manila. His practice ranges from traditional modes of motion picture production to methods more involved with experimentation in form and presentation. He is interested in the capacity of art to be repositories of truth exposed and used as sites of fragmentation and contradictions. His works intend to expose, criticize, and test boundaries of power including its language, structure, and relations. His multifaceted presentations including but not limited to sound, text, and objects often result in artifacts that address identity forming mechanisms of political systems while simultaneously creating monuments and ruins as an accumulation of historical matter and lingering thoughts. Local and regional constitutional scandals are often used as his points of departure to examine the processes of alienation from unifying ideals. By appropriating and recontextualizing visual languages drawn from popular and at times historical ideologies in order to amplify strategies of of propagandistic manipulation, he creates atmospheric scenes and environments depicting dystopic realities that expose the ironies of progress. Through deep investigations of his and others' lived experiences, he is able to explore a complex range of narratives regarding the everyday expressions of care.