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Jo Dery

Associate Professor
Film
Media Arts Center 126 • M/S 4000
603-358-2164

Jo Dery is an artist who experiments with visual storytelling. She makes animation, books and comics, works on paper, and multi-media projects. Her creative practice is rooted in drawing and writing. Her stories are inspired by folklore, memoir, and a deep love of the natural world.

Her short films have screened at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation. In 2012, she received the Helen Hill Award, which supports innovative independent filmmakers, and in 2013 she was featured in Chronicle Books' Animation Sketchbooks. She has been awarded grants from the LEF Foundation, The Free History Project, and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Her drawings, prints, and multi-media projects have been exhibited in Providence, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Berlin. Her books can be found in independent stores like Ada Books (Providence), Quimby's (Chicago), and Little Otsu (Portland), and her comics have been listed as Honorable Mentions in Best American Comics series three times.

She earned a BFA in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. She has completed residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as participated in an animation workshop at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland.

She has a decade of higher education teaching experience, with a specialty in Animation and Digital Media. Jo teaches Video Production, Sound, Capstone I and II, Career Development in Film and Media, Animation, and also works regularly with students to create personalized independent studies. She has a passion for teaching creative practice in a liberal arts setting, where she works to challenge students to find their artistic voice.

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