Joliz Dela Pe\u00f1a, also known as JDP 2009, is a self-taught interdisciplinary artist and a cultural worker born in the Philippines, now based in Tiohti\u00e0: ke\/Montreal. Intimate connection to memories, identity, and immigration are recurring themes in Dela Pe\u00f1a\u2019s practice. Through performance accompanied by installations, she pursues to relive realities, explore its complexities, and translate invisible tension\/s into various visual and tactile qualities.
\nShown in her work, she attempts to translate fragmented memories from her personal life as first-generation immigrant, drawing also from intersecting experiences, in order to construct an emphatic perspective. Her aim extends beyond mere contemplation, encompassing a dimension of activism.
\nDela Pe\u00f1a\u2019s work has been presented at various festivals across Quebec and Canada, including Art Souterrain Festival (Voies\/Voix R\u00e9silientes, 2022), OFFTA (2023), Art in the Open PEI (2023), and Vibrance et Vacarme in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region (Caravanserail, 2024). Most recently, Dela Pe\u00f1a presented her work internationally in Le\u00f3n, Mexico (Performance es utopia, 2025).
\nJust wanted you to know is a video installation series composed of durational performance works to be developed between Dela Pe\u00f1a\u2019s home country, the Philippines, and her second home, Quebec. At its core, the project anchors itself in the dual identity of being both an immigrant in Canada and a non-official citizen of her birthplace. The work not only embodies a yearning to be heard but also serves as a direct statement addressing the social and political conditions that shape each performance.
\nThrough long-duration performance, accompanied by the mundane wallpaper of both countries, Dela Pe\u00f1a will explore how gestures, fatigue, and presence become vessels for memory, survival, and resistance where art itself transforms into a form of protest, and performance is not merely a rehearsal for reality. This artistic research is deeply tied to her engagement as a youth activist, reflecting on the long history between the Philippines and imperialist powers. Ultimately, this project aims to embody a mix of softness and militancy. Dela Pe\u00f1a seeks to move, unsettle, and awaken empathy, transforming personal testimony into a shared call for understanding and change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19037,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"role":[],"cities":[137],"data_type":[141],"joint_mentorship":[],"class_list":["post-19039","artist","type-artist","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","artists-25-26-en","artists-current","program-alliance-en","discipline-arts-interdisciplinaires-en","cities-montreal-en","data_type-artist"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n