Pasalubong #15 (International Waters)
2024
~ 34" x 68" (4 by 8 of the artist's feet)
Handwoven bottled water labels, archival film, grommets, plastic bag cordage
Sandstone Keepsake IV (Beneath the Paving Stones Pannotia)
2023
Approx. 42” x 42” x 7“
Bullrushes, Discarded Marine Plastics, Plastic Food Packaging, Peat Ash, Silicone, Bitumen, Local Cement, Coins, Votive Candle, Plastic Water Bottle Caps, Epoxy, Dichroic Film, Snail Shell, Brass Grommet
Trinket II
To Stem the Flowing Tide2023
What’s gonna happen, sooner or later, all the wretched of the earth in one way or another — next Tuesday or next Wednesday —will destroy the cobblestones on which London and Rome and Paris are built. The world will change because it has to change...
The party is over. That is what is going to happen.
-James Baldwin
The least we can do is throw stones.
What’s gonna happen, sooner or later, all the wretched of the earth in one way or another — next Tuesday or next Wednesday —will destroy the cobblestones on which London and Rome and Paris are built. The world will change because it has to change...
The party is over. That is what is going to happen.
-James Baldwin
The least we can do is throw stones.
Trinket II is a video recording of a symbollic gesture performed in solidarity with Palestinian fight for liberation. Recorded against the backdrop of the dry stone walls lining a historic so-called “famine” road in a remote part of the west of Ireland, a figure approaches the camera on two separate occasions. On each approach, the figure presents a cobble stone from a different place: a historic Dublin cobble stone and a Manila paver, which are cast from local Irish cement, turf ash and volcanic ash from Mt. Pinatubo. The figure backs away from the camera and throws the stone down the road.
Stone throwing has been emblematic of Palestinian resistance since the first Intifada in the 1980s and early 1990s. The act of throwing stones at heavily armed Zionist soldiers has become an act of defiance and a defining symbol of Palestinian struggle. While a single stone is unlikely to take down advanced military rifles or high-tech missiles, the simple act of throwing has become a way of expressing rejection of the violence and crimes committed by the Zionist occupation.
In what’s been called a “void of responsibility,” Palestinian stone-throwers alone are characterized by the Zionist occupation as terrorists, and under Zionist law, they are potentially punished with up to 10 years in prison. This increases to 20 if it is determined that serious harm was intended. Meanwhile, the Zionist military — highly armed through ongoing U.S.military aid — shamelessly shoots dead Palestinian stone-throwers, who are often children, with impunity.
Often parallelled with the tale of David and Goliath, stone-throwing is a willful act of defiance and empowerment in spite of the atmosphere of hopeless and feeling of inevitable defeat that the Zionist aggressor aims to cultivate. The enduring connection of Palestinians to their land is unconditional and indestructible—even acts of resistance and revolution are profoundly and decisively rooted in relationship with ground, and with the earth bearing witness.
--
My own small gesture is done in utter, absolute and steadfast solidarity with the people of Palestine, their just struggle to resist the ongoing occupation of their lands and their need to break free from the cycles of violence they have been subjected to at the hands of Zionist settler-colonizers for over 75 years.
Hand in hand, this symbollic gesture is a condemnation of terror-tagging and dehumanizing language being used to frame these events in mainstream media, and the political repression of protesting citizens by imperialist states complicit with the Zionist project, who have suppressed solidarity demonstrations by bureaucratic and violent means. And a denunciation of astronomical amounts of tax-payer dollars in military aid sent from the U.S. to fund the ongoing militarization, displacement, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people.
My ancestors in both my homelands, Ireland and the Philippines, both faced genocide by imperialist colonizers, have both had centuries-long histories of revolution, and both wage ongoing resistance to fascism and imperialism. But the similarities go beyond mere parallels—our struggles are inextricably and materially linked with the Palestinian people’s struggle. Anti-imperialist, anti-colonial struggles worldwide will remain irrevocably entwined as long as the greedy tentacles of imperialism continue to violently displace people from their lands in order to continue their unchecked extraction of precious earth resources in service of global capital.
Decolonization isn’t abstract, land back isn’t a metaphor—when people are colonized, when lands are occupied, resistance is justified. The Palestinian people have a right to resist, a right to fight for their ancestral lands, self-determination and sovereignty by whatever means necessary, until liberation!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!
MAKIBAKA! HUWAG MATAKOT!
MABUHAY ANG INTIFADA!
SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTÍN!
FROM PALESTINE TO THE PHILIPPINES, STOP THE U.S. WAR MACHINE!
Stone throwing has been emblematic of Palestinian resistance since the first Intifada in the 1980s and early 1990s. The act of throwing stones at heavily armed Zionist soldiers has become an act of defiance and a defining symbol of Palestinian struggle. While a single stone is unlikely to take down advanced military rifles or high-tech missiles, the simple act of throwing has become a way of expressing rejection of the violence and crimes committed by the Zionist occupation.
In what’s been called a “void of responsibility,” Palestinian stone-throwers alone are characterized by the Zionist occupation as terrorists, and under Zionist law, they are potentially punished with up to 10 years in prison. This increases to 20 if it is determined that serious harm was intended. Meanwhile, the Zionist military — highly armed through ongoing U.S.military aid — shamelessly shoots dead Palestinian stone-throwers, who are often children, with impunity.
Often parallelled with the tale of David and Goliath, stone-throwing is a willful act of defiance and empowerment in spite of the atmosphere of hopeless and feeling of inevitable defeat that the Zionist aggressor aims to cultivate. The enduring connection of Palestinians to their land is unconditional and indestructible—even acts of resistance and revolution are profoundly and decisively rooted in relationship with ground, and with the earth bearing witness.
--
My own small gesture is done in utter, absolute and steadfast solidarity with the people of Palestine, their just struggle to resist the ongoing occupation of their lands and their need to break free from the cycles of violence they have been subjected to at the hands of Zionist settler-colonizers for over 75 years.
Hand in hand, this symbollic gesture is a condemnation of terror-tagging and dehumanizing language being used to frame these events in mainstream media, and the political repression of protesting citizens by imperialist states complicit with the Zionist project, who have suppressed solidarity demonstrations by bureaucratic and violent means. And a denunciation of astronomical amounts of tax-payer dollars in military aid sent from the U.S. to fund the ongoing militarization, displacement, apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people.
My ancestors in both my homelands, Ireland and the Philippines, both faced genocide by imperialist colonizers, have both had centuries-long histories of revolution, and both wage ongoing resistance to fascism and imperialism. But the similarities go beyond mere parallels—our struggles are inextricably and materially linked with the Palestinian people’s struggle. Anti-imperialist, anti-colonial struggles worldwide will remain irrevocably entwined as long as the greedy tentacles of imperialism continue to violently displace people from their lands in order to continue their unchecked extraction of precious earth resources in service of global capital.
Decolonization isn’t abstract, land back isn’t a metaphor—when people are colonized, when lands are occupied, resistance is justified. The Palestinian people have a right to resist, a right to fight for their ancestral lands, self-determination and sovereignty by whatever means necessary, until liberation!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!
MAKIBAKA! HUWAG MATAKOT!
MABUHAY ANG INTIFADA!
SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTÍN!
FROM PALESTINE TO THE PHILIPPINES, STOP THE U.S. WAR MACHINE!
Sandstone Keepsake III (The Phantom Island Hy-Brasil)
2023
Approx. 49” x 49” x 10
Polystyrene, Bitumenous Paint, Coins, Medallion Necklace, Snail Shell, Epoxy, Field Rushes, Discarded Plastic Packaging, Discarded Plastic Bottles, Found Fishing Nets and Ropes, Discarded Food Packaging, Assorted Found Plastics, Found Cable, Silicone, Turf Ash
Walang Buwan II (Palengke Pasalubong Meryenda)
2023
Featured in Edge on the Square’s “Under the Same Sun” Festival
Woven component: Handwoven dichroic film, mylar emergency blankets, disassembled polypropylene bags, grommets, discarded plastics foraged in Binondo, Manila.
Cast meryendas: cement, artificial model turf, mica
Walang Buwan II is a site sensitive art object meant to be installed in Ross Alley in San Francisco Chinatown. The work is woven using traditional Filipino techniques of palm weaving from plastic waste materials gathered in what is called the first Chinatown in Binondo, Manila, Philippines, and deconstructed woven polypropylene bags gathered in San Francisco Chinatown. These new materials are combined with materials specific to the artist’s practice—including dichroic film, polypropylene tarp, mylar emergency blanket. The cordage used to install this work is hand-wound from plastic shopping bags.
When strong light shines through the woven component of the work, the object becomes illuminated and also casts a colorful light effect. The casting of this light effect to the space below the banig-inspired object is meant to mimic the traditional purposes of the Filipino “banig” mat: to create a space of gathering or ritual.
In this space of gathering/ritual, small piles or “tumpok” of “meryenda” or snacks cast in cement and mica are placed as an offering. These souvenirs or “pasalubong” are gifts for visitors to take away if they please.
