Justin Talplacido Shoulder is a shape shifting artist and storyteller, working primarily in performance, sculpture, video and collective events. Also known as Phasmahammer, their practice is an eco-cosmology of alter personas based on queered ancestral myth. Creatures birthed are embodied through hand crafted costumes and prosthesis and animated by their own gestural languages. The artist uses their body and craft as an instrument of metaphysics towards a queer Filipinx Futurism. Shoulder believes in performance and shared ceremony as communal medicine for difficult times. 

Shoulder is a founding member of queer artist collective The Glitter Militia with partner and key collaborator Matthew Stegh. Over 12 years they co-created a series of events including Monsta Gras with Penelope Benton, an annual artist ball that aimed to reinvigorate the artistic and political intentions of the 78ers. A politicised avant-garde community led incubator for performance, music, visual art and dance for local and international LGBTQIA+ artists 2008-2020. 

Shoulder is also co-director of collective Club Ate with artist Bhenji Ra. Inspired by their shared Filipinx heritage and interest to create new narratives of motherhood and sisterhood the pair created a series of fundraisers, balls, and variety nights inviting and celebrating their local Asia-Pacific queer and trans family. This work extended into the film series Ex Nilalang Episodes 1-4:  2014-2017, and Ang Idol Ko: 2022 (highlights include Asia Pacific Triennial 2015, GOMA, screening at the Barbican, London, a finalist for Singapore Art Museum Prize and large scale projected and live activated work In Muva We Trust on the façade of the NGA, Canberra 2020).  

Shoulder’s theatre and visual art works have been presented across Australia and Internationally where they work between gallery, nightclub, and theatre contexts. Highlights include: La Manutention performance artist in residence at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2019, The Prague Quadrennial of Stage Design, 2019, Premiere of theatre work Carrion, Performance Space, Sydney (AUS) + subsequent tour to Artshouse, Melb (AUS), Fusebox Festival, Texas (USA), Museum Macan, Jakarta (IDN), Roskilde (DEN), Kampnagel, Hamburg (DE), Fierce Festival (UK), MAI, Montreal. 

New work has been commissioned recently for NIRIN Sydney Bienalle 2020, The National, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2021 and film work Ang Idol Ko, for MCA, Sydney / UCCA DUNE, Beidaihe, China 2022. Phasmahammer is currently working towards their new body of work Anito, a co-commission between Rising Festival, Melb, Sydney Festival and MONA premiering in 2023. A hybrid body of work for theatre, gallery and nightclub. 

In 2024 Shoulder’s collective Club Ate were the recipient of the Creative Australia: Inspire Award