Studio Lenca aka Jose Campos (1986) is an artist from El Salvador living and working in the UK.
I was born in La Paz, El Salvador and like many had to flee the country during its violent civil war during the late 1980’s. I travelled to the US by land, illegally with my mother. I grew up in San Francisco, California as a queer minority in the gaze of a strictly conservative administration as an undocumented ‘illegal alien’. Ultimately, I found refuge in the UK and became a British Citizen in 2007. This experience of being uprooted serves as a framework for my ideas to be read by others as themes of identity, belonging and oppression are universal.
As a queer member of the Latinx diaspora , my work is focused on ideas surrounding difference, knowledge and visibility. I work with performance, video, painting and sculpture. My work often starts through personal memories, creative activism or underpinned by different forms of praxis. I work under the name of ‘Studio Lenca’ as the language of ‘studio’ refers to a space for experimentation and a place that is constantly shifting. Lenca refers to my ancestors of my native El Salvador.