About Me
Work
Jamila's' work is heavily influenced by her own upbringing, exploring family dynamics andidentity within the home. A major theme and inspiration in her work has been capturing thecomplexities of Sisterhood, intimacy, healing, and reconnection whilesimultaneously confronting all the ways we move, leaving traces of ourselves,adapting to one another as we continue to struggle to preserve this feelingthat nothing will ever change.
Interested in the life people keep concealed and curious for what was not apparent, she began to photograph her middle sister Inti in her first year of high school. There was a certain quality about her that she could not understand at the time but it drove her in search for answers.
Jamila is presently de-constructing and responding towards the dynamics of the relationships she has built with her immediate family, often finding herself de-materializing and re-working “the real” by becoming an investigator of her own past. She works primarily with broken narratives, distortion of memories, and perceptions of reality to confront, heal and rebuild this notion of what family and intimacy mean to her.
Biography
Jamila grew up in downtown Toronto in a Latin American household with two very photogenic younger sisters. Her parents’ geographical cures helped her embrace change and find the uniqueness of living in the moment. Boredom was a taboo state, repeatedly reminded to her by her father’s famous Buddha quote: “ Boredom is fundamental non awareness of life”. Growing up with this mantra forced her to look at all things from a new perspective.
Jamila is an OCAD University graduate with a Bachelor in Fine Arts specializing in Photography. Her work has been featured at the Gladstone Hotel "A Love Ethic" with Wedge Curatorial Projects in 2019, as well as in The Walrus Magazine for their 2020 Sept/Oct issue.