Rising Stars: Meet Jo Zhao of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jo Zhao

Hi Jo, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and raised in Sydney australia, where I was lucky enough to have had art be a constant throughout my life. I spent much my time learning performing and visual arts, including dance, drawing, textiles, photography, and creative writing. It wasn’t til tenth grade that I stumbled upon what was the ultimate intersection between all these artforms: filmmaking. After a short stint in film school in Sydney, I packed my bags and moved across the world to Los Angeles in pursuit of it.

I majored in Film and Television at UCLA, where my artistic voice slowly started to fall into place. I worked on film sets, created digital media projects, and directed several shorts, including my thesis “Things Are Good”. This film went on to be selected for the Los Angeles International Film Festival, and was nominated for ‘Best First-Time filmmaker of the year at Mammoth Film Festival’, and ‘Young Australian Filmmaker of the Year’ at the Byron Bay International Film Festival. Since then, I’ve been working as a full-time video editor, and a freelance director, cinematographer, and editor of projects across the spectrum.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve been immensely privileged to have had the opportunity to leave my home country and immigrate to the other hemisphere in pursuit of my passions. However, the USA was a new country in which I had literally zero connections or family – no distant uncles, no internet friends. Although I’ve since built an incredible network of friendships, not a day goes by where I’m not made aware of my immigrant status, an anxiety compounded by today’s political climate. On top of the usual battle most artists face to feel validated in their work, those striving for an O1 visa also have to prove the so-called ‘legitimacy’ of their artistry to the US government. As you might imagine, navigating this situation has been difficult and stressful as it can impede on the space needed for experimentation and nurture-ship of one’s artistic identity.

I was no stranger to mental health struggles from highschool though – periods of emotional and existential agony were critical to my worldview as a young person. The residual disorientation carried into my college years, where I continued to wrangle with my relationship with the world, and what I needed my art to be.

Both my mental strife and status as an outsider continue to be some of the most formative experiences of my life, and thus, the most impactful to my artistic voice today. These struggles have given me important perspective and the resilience to thrive and strive for success, whatever that may mean for me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I tend to introduce myself as a film director, editor and photographer. I create work in the commercial, narrative, music, and art spaces.

Truthfully, I consider myself far more vaguely as a digital artist. I say that because I can’t seem to forfeit anything from my wide net of passions and enjoy taking on many roles at once. Disciplines don’t exist in a vacuum, they intersect and bleed into one another. I find that those transitory spaces between mediums is exactly where I like my work to live. In my 16mm dance film, “Out of Line”, I made my first appearance as choreographer, featuring a skill acquired through my 14 years of dance training, which was thought to have been a wasted endeavor. Even unconsciously, dance silently reveals itself in my work through an affinity towards movement and rhythm.

I enjoy creating meticulous art that involve some subversion of convention – whether it’d be narrative tropes, or more commonly, the cinematic format. I love ideas that put a spin on our expectations of the medium itself. My short film, “Things Are Good”, for instance, takes major influence from my love of photography to create absurd frozen tableaus. The blinking, breathing ‘photographs’ undergo Photoshop-inspired alterations, portraying the unrelenting yet malleable nature of trauma and memory. Through atmosphere, surrealism, and escapism, I enjoy exploring the relatable human condition and the hilarity and nonsense that might entail.

As I continue to experiment with art forms and contemporary technologies, I hope that my work will speak to people’s more intimate psychologies and spark curiosity and conversations. And even if the only take away was that my work was merely pleasant to rest their eyes on, I’d be honored by that too.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Very soon I’ll be releasing the crowdfunding campaign for my upcoming video art project – a multi-channel installation about the increasing disillusionment with modernity and our expectations of nature to cure it. Any and all support is appreciated, including following my journey through social media to keep up with new projects!

I believe that collaborating with like-minded friends is the whole point of anything really, so If you have a vision or a mutual vibe then simply reach out! I would love to hear from you.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jozhao.work
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jo____zh__

Image Credits
Jo Zhao
Elaine Caton