Their work brings concepts from postmodern literature, the surrealist movement, and contemporary art to cinema. Their films, which use collage, puppets, textured painting, and text, provide a counterpoint between the metaphysical and the playful. Lilliputian characters are often introduced to an apocalyptic realm ruled by giants. Jo's work combines: their own literature, religious, political, fairy-tale, and scientific themes using satire and symbolism.[1][2]
Animated films
In 1990 their animated film The Brooch Pin and the Sinful Clasp[3] using stop frame animation, and featuring performance artist Rose English, won the Grand Prize at Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film, the Direction Award for best first animated film at the British Animation Awards[4] and the Time Out Film Award. It was also a part of Between Imagination and Reality,[5] a programme of film and video selected by Tilda Swinton.
Video installation
In 2007, their video installation Flatlanders, expressing a judgement of the scale of ambition of science at CERN,[6] was featured in Guildford Cathedral in connection with a science debate organised by Surrey University called Is science the new religion? attended by Jim Al-Khalili and Dr Brian Cox. The subject was based around the nuclear experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
One of their ongoing projects is 6 Days Goodbye Poems Of Ophelia,[7] research funded by The Wellcome Trust[8] and with a microbiology input by Dr Simon Park[9] of Surrey University. Under The Microscope[10] is an interpretation of Ophelia painted out of bacteria that incorporates messages to Ophelia from the public as part of the soundscape.[11]
Performances
Their avant-garde performance art has included working within the experimental the Washroom Collective,[12] which typically involves improvisation and audience interaction.
2012, MayJoWonder and the Psychic Tea Leaves, a site-specific 45-minute performance in the tradition of a Victorian seance, using the supernatural as subject performed at the belfry of St Johns on Bethnal Green, part of First Thursdays organised by Whitechapel Art Gallery.[13]
2019, September, The Woven Plait of Beatrice a part of a site-specific event The Woven with seven multidisciplinary artists and musicians inspired by the unique heritage of St Leonard's, Shoreditch. 2020 further developed as an experimental performance video.[14]
2023, site-specific piece as a part of 'L'Age d'Or', a contemporary surrealist group exhibition, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan , to celebrate the film L'Age d'Or directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dali The film explores themes such as: humanization, destruction, confusion, passion, fear, oppression and isolation. JoWonder’s performance took place over the weekend of the coronation of Charles III in the Uk; incorporating a mock coronation of Street Artist Rolling Fool, dressed in a monkey costume. The exhibition brought together forty international artists to reflect on the question: What would Buñuel’s L'Age d'Or look like today?[15]
2023, 5–7 May; paintings; including a depiction of Liz Truss being abducted by fairies*, and Xi Jinping having breakfast with his dog, shown as a part of L'Age d'Or, a contemporary surrealist group exhibition, curated by Iranian born Baharak Dehghan. The exhibition celebrated the surrealist film: L'Age d'Or directed by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dali. The L'Age d'Or exhibition and event took place at the Crypt Gallery St Pancras New Church,[15][22][23]
Liz Truss being abducted by fairies* 'Abduction of the Sleeping Prime Minister' was also shown in the London Biannale 2023,[23][24]
Curated exhibitions
JoWonder curated an exhibition on the theme of Schrödinger's cat in 2022, with help from a Public Engagement Grant from the Institute of Physics which included 21 visual artists at the Bookery Gallerie, London.[25][26][27]
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