Malakas at Maganda, 2018
two-channel video installation, computer-cut vinyl adhesive, HD video, sound, 8 minutes 29 seconds, 313 × 192 cm each
Production: Motel Picture Company.

Commissioned for the 2018 NSW Visual Arts Emerging Fellowship, 16 November – 16 December 2018, curated by Alexie Glass-Kantor, Michelle Newton and Lola Pinder, Artspace, Sydney. This work was supported by the 4A Beijing Studio Program.

Malakas at Maganda is a two-channel video portrait of the artist opposite his mother, Myrna De Guzman, that reflects on the intersection between personal and national identities. Filmed from the waist up, they are framed by various layers of text: at the outermost layer, the words ‘Filipino Strength’ and ‘Filipina Beauty’, which refer to Malakas at Maganda (Strength and Beauty), an ancient Philippine creation myth parallel to the Judeo-Christian mythology of Adam and Eve; ‘Republika ng Pilipinas’ (Republic of the Philippines), sampled from the 1 and 5 sentimo coins of the Philippine peso which, until 1995, featured Lapu-Lapu and Melchora Aquino, respectively the only Indigenous and female figures acknowledged on Philippine coin currency; and lastly, framed, literally, by a pair of sunglasses and a souvenir t-shirt branded with ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’, the international slogan of Philippine tourism, launched in 2012. In combining ancient and contemporary texts and histories through the lens of portraiture, the artist proposes that identity – as well as being historically highly gendered – is also fluid and multilayered, rather than strictly fixed or representational.

Photos: Zan Wimberley