About Sofia Ella Quimbo
ARTIST BIO
Sofia is a maker and design researcher whose work engages with historiography, postcoloniality, and the limits and possibilities of language. Her current projects examine how narratives
evolve and transform, with a focus on the Philippines and Filipinos, using collage, fiber, puppetry, and publishing to develop counter-narratives that foreground silences, absences, and nonlinear readings of history.
She recently completed her MFA in Communications Design (With Distinction) at Pratt Institute. She was previously a graduate fellow at the Pratt Center for Community Development and a graduate assistant of Prof. Shuyi Cao.
In the Philippines, she worked in marketing communications. She received a BFA in Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
Born and raised in Manila, she currently lives between Manila and Brooklyn.
She recently completed her MFA in Communications Design (With Distinction) at Pratt Institute. She was previously a graduate fellow at the Pratt Center for Community Development and a graduate assistant of Prof. Shuyi Cao.
In the Philippines, she worked in marketing communications. She received a BFA in Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
Born and raised in Manila, she currently lives between Manila and Brooklyn.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I’m most interested in the WHYS. I’m less interested in HOW MIGHT WE. Instead, I always ask WHY MUST WE?
Currently, I’m preoccupied with history. WHY is history history? WHY do we write it? WHY might we contest or erase it? WHY must we remember? I look at both the micro—the self and the family in the right-now—and macro—world-systems shaped over centuries.
My work isn’t an attempt to recover a singular, lost narrative but rather to surface fractures and inconsistencies. WHY are there fractures and inconsistencies?
Through a multidisciplinary approach, I use text, fiber, and performance to examine how memory is produced and disseminated. I’m drawn to alternative methods of recording and retelling whether through the tactile nature of handmade books, the ephemerality of performance, or the communal aspects of storytelling. My research often leads me to archives but I’m equally invested in the stories that slip through the cracks. Whenever someone tells me something isn’t worth pursuing, that’s a pretty good indication that I should.
I also recognize the privilege that has given me access to certain platforms and spaces. My work is an ongoing negotiation with this reality and I use my position to challenge structures that perpetuate exclusion and historical amnesia.
I see publishing as an act, a performance. An assertion of present-ness.
I strive to make work that unsettles, that asks WHY we know what we think we know, to trouble the line between what is remembered and what is forgotten, all within a framework that prioritizes care, community, and fun.
Currently, I’m preoccupied with history. WHY is history history? WHY do we write it? WHY might we contest or erase it? WHY must we remember? I look at both the micro—the self and the family in the right-now—and macro—world-systems shaped over centuries.
My work isn’t an attempt to recover a singular, lost narrative but rather to surface fractures and inconsistencies. WHY are there fractures and inconsistencies?
Through a multidisciplinary approach, I use text, fiber, and performance to examine how memory is produced and disseminated. I’m drawn to alternative methods of recording and retelling whether through the tactile nature of handmade books, the ephemerality of performance, or the communal aspects of storytelling. My research often leads me to archives but I’m equally invested in the stories that slip through the cracks. Whenever someone tells me something isn’t worth pursuing, that’s a pretty good indication that I should.
I also recognize the privilege that has given me access to certain platforms and spaces. My work is an ongoing negotiation with this reality and I use my position to challenge structures that perpetuate exclusion and historical amnesia.
I see publishing as an act, a performance. An assertion of present-ness.
I strive to make work that unsettles, that asks WHY we know what we think we know, to trouble the line between what is remembered and what is forgotten, all within a framework that prioritizes care, community, and fun.