Jen D’Mello’s work attends to queer social life as text, and text as material for the many. Intellectual rumination - consisting of sensual, skeptical and imaginative collisions - occurs during walks along the farthest edges of the city. These collisions result in hybrid writing and sonic experiments that enable the conditions of passage through material thresholds, or a blueprint for a way of life fellow travelers can return to after experiencing forced migration.
Jen’s work can be found in HYENA, a collaborative book honoring the legacy of women in surrealism, published by LA-based feminist press HEXENTEXTE. HYENA can be purchased at ARTBOOK @ Hauser and Wirth in Downtown LA.
Jen has performed at 2220 Arts/Poetic Research Bureau, Beyond Baroque, REDCAT/Roy and Edna CalArts Theater, and as a resident artist at The Reef Gallery, Fábrica Braço de Prata in Lisbon, Portugal, and Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto, Portugal.
After receiving an MFA in Writing at California Institute of the Arts, Jen began teaching as an independent, cross-disciplinary, arts and humanities advisor, specializing in hybrid writing and neurodivergent thought. They develop highly specific curricula for students who require alternative approaches to learning. Jen’s encourages autonomous study, the development of a creative, intellectual practice, and promotes literacy in all subjects.
Jen can be found ruminating and writing poems in the San Gabriel Mountains, writing prose in their car on the side of Griffith Blvd. after work, studying and strategizing with fellow travelers, training for the 2027 Golden Gloves Tournament, and germinating common native plants with Altadena Seed Library in the wake of recent wildfires.
Contact: Jenniferbdmello@gmail.com