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Work Samples

Still Life: Longing (Work in progress)

Still Life: Longing
Still Life: Longing 2022 Commercial refrigerator containing goods purchased at Baltimore H-Mart (rambutan, bangus, green papaya, jackfruit, can of corned beef, can of Tocino Spam, banana heart, mangoes, calabaza, eggplants, sugar canes, ampalaya, and banana leaves) In "Still Life: Longing", I wanted to create a "still life" informed by the gaze of displacement and longing.

Export Quality

"Wish You Were Her (Marble steps outside DC historical landmark)", 2022. Digital photograph.
"Wish You Were Her (Marble steps outside DC historical landmark)", 2022. Digital photograph.

Multo (Apparitions) Series | Bedroom (Kuwait)

Multo (Apparitions) Series | Bedroom (Kuwait), 2022.

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About Thea

Baltimore City

I am a Filipinx-American artist/designer/mother living in Baltimore, MD interrogating post-colonial/post-"globalization" Filipinx identity in my research-based studio art practice. My concept-driven work is often installation-based and focus on materiality and material histories as a means to convey meaning. Currently, my work explores the intersections of globalized economies, racial capitalism, post-colonial statecraft, (trans)national identity, and systems that dictate cultural and economic value... more

Walis Studies (Export Quality)

The term "Export Quality" in Philippine marketing signals that a product is higher end and produced with more care and better ingredients simply because it's created for a foreign consumer. If so, what does "Local Quality" denote? This piece is a meditation on Philippine feminine identity in the Western imagination and its entanglements with gendered labor and desire. I recreated a walis tambo (broom in Tagalog) and exchanged the bristles with human hair. I wanted the look of exoticized straight black Asian hair to be readily recognizable. "Export Quality" is woven on the handle, which is also fairly common for walis tambo often sold to tourists. 

Also shown is a photo series called "Wish You Were Her" wherein the broom is photographed in diffrent landmarks around Washington, DC. 

  • Export Quality

    "Export Quality", 2022. Hair, plastic rattan, and bamboo.
    "Export Quality", 2022. Hair, plastic rattan, and bamboo. The term "Export Quality" in Philippine marketing signals that a product is higher end and produced with more care and better ingredients simply because it's created for a foreign consumer. If so, what does "Local Quality" denote? This piece is a meditation on Philippine feminine identity in the Western imagination and its entanglements with gendered labor and desire. I recreated a walis tambo (broom in Tagalog) and exchanged the bristles with human hair.
  • Wish You Were Her (Marble steps outside DC historical landmark)

    "Wish You Were Her (Marble steps outside DC historical landmark)", 2022. Digital photograph.
    "Wish You Were Her (Marble steps outside DC historical landmark)", 2022. Digital photograph. "Wish You Were Her" is a photo series wherein the walis tambo (broom) is photographed in different landmarks around Washington, DC. For this series, I was interested in picking specific sites that were predominantly aesthetically white, or made of white marble for the broom to sit in. These were also spaces that denote class and power.
  • "Wish You Were Her (National Gallery I)", 2022. Digital photograph.

    "Wish You Were Her (National Gallery I)", 2022. Digital photograph.
    "Wish You Were Her (National Gallery I)", 2022. Digital photograph. "Wish You Were Her" is a photo series wherein the walis tambo (broom) is photographed in different landmarks around Washington, DC. For this series, I was interested in picking specific sites that were predominantly aesthetically white, or made of white marble for the broom to sit in. These were also spaces that denote class and power.
  • Wish You Were Her (National Gallery II: empty gallery in Contemporary wing)

    "Wish You Were Her (National Gallery II: empty gallery in Contemporary wing)", 2022. Digital photograph.
    "Wish You Were Her (National Gallery II: empty gallery in Contemporary wing)", 2022. Digital photograph. "Wish You Were Her" is a photo series wherein the walis tambo (broom) is photographed in different landmarks around Washington, DC. For this series, I was interested in picking specific sites that were predominantly aesthetically white, or made of white marble for the broom to sit in. These were also spaces that denote class and power.
  • "Wish You Were Her (Federal Trade Commission)", 2022. Digital photograph.

    "Wish You Were Her (Federal Trade Commission)", 2022. Digital photograph.
    "Wish You Were Her (Federal Trade Commission)", 2022. Digital photograph. "Wish You Were Her" is a photo series wherein the walis tambo (broom) is photographed in different landmarks around Washington, DC. For this series, I was interested in picking specific sites that were predominantly aesthetically white, or made of white marble for the broom to sit in. These were also spaces that denote class and power.
  • Mock-up of installation for Walis Study (In Progress)

    Mock-up of installation for Walis Study (In Progress)
    In the latest study for this series, I am creating multiples of the broom. Each one has a lyric from the chorus of "Ma Filipino Babe", a country song written after the Spanish-American War: "She’s my Filipino Baby She’s my treasure and my pet Her teeth are bright and pearly And her hair is black as jet O’ her lips are sweet as honey And her heart is true I know She’s my darling little Filipino Baby" -Chorus from Ma Filipino Babe (1898), Charles Kassell Harris

Still Life: Longing (Work in progress)

Still Life: Longing 
2022
Commercial refrigerator containing goods purchased at Baltimore H-Mart (rambutan, bangus, green papaya, jackfruit, can of corned beef, can of Tocino Spam, banana heart, mangoes, calabaza, eggplants, sugar canes, ampalaya, and banana leaves)

In "Still Life: Longing", I wanted to create a "still life" informed by the gaze of displacement and longing. I also wanted to emphasize how early colonial economies still inform modern global foodways by mimicking the look of 16th-18th European still lives that featured products from colonies and were prized for their exotic nature, novelty, and rarity. Presenting it as an installation within a commercial refrigerator was key to recalling modern industrial mechanisms of global commerce and exchange. The selection of objects are also significant--I wanted to collect from whichever city I am in (in this case, Baltimore) and buy what I can from what is locally available. I specifically chose fruits, vegetables, and other goods that speak to what I miss from the Philippines. The selection also represents the extent of availability of Philippine goods within a certain area. Some goods, like the corned beef and Tocino Spam, allude to outside culinary influences and are not Philippine-made but their significance to the community and my ideation of the Philippines is enough to be included. It also recalls historical entanglements with the United States as Spam was introduced to the Philippines in the 1940s when US troops were fighting Japanese forces during World War 2. 
  • Mock-up for Installation of "Still Life: Longing"

    Mock-up for Installation of "Still Life: Longing"
    Mock-up for Installation of "Still Life: Longing"
  • Still Life: Longing (Detail)

    Still Life: Longing (Detail)
    Still Life: Longing (Detail) 2022 Commercial refrigerator containing goods purchased at Baltimore H-Mart (rambutan, bangus, green papaya, jackfruit, can of corned beef, can of Tocino Spam, banana heart, mangoes, calabaza, eggplants, sugar canes, ampalaya, and banana leaves)

Value Studies

Value Studies is a series of works in various media that explore the entanglements of global capitalist systems, constructions of cultural identity, and value. I utilize the language of material histories and commodities specifically tied to the collective national identity of the Philippines. I’m also utilizing personal sensorial and material associations in my work, as a way of grounding it in an autoethnographic approach to research and art production. Chromatic value also plays a part in creating these pieces.
  • Mockup for Value Study: My Name is Maria Too (Work in progress)

    Mockup for Value Study: My Name is Maria Too (Work in progress)
    Value Study: My Name is Maria Too 2023 (In progress) Skin whitening soaps in the shape of the Virgin Mary presented on commercial shelving In thinking about the legacy of Spanish colonization in the Philippines, the most deeply felt imprint for me is the imposed impossibility of the feminine ideal informed by the Virgin Mary. I went to an all-girl Catholic school in Manila and a shrine of the Virgin is prominently placed in the center of the school grounds. I would later find out that this is a common architectural feature in many schools all over the Philippines.
  • Value Study: Balikbayan

    Value Study: Balikbayan
    Value Study: Balikbayan 2022 White sand, pearls, teeth, and air bubble void fill
  • Value Study: Buhok/Bunot

    Value Study: Buhok/Bunot 2022 Coconut husks, hair, white sand, pearls, and teeth
  • Value Study: Coconut (Detail)

    Value Study: Buhok/Bunot (detail) 2022 Coconut husks, hair, white sand, pearls, and teeth
  • Value Study: Uniforms (In progress)

    Value Study: Uniforms. My research into Philippine material culture plays a significant role in finding ways to convey further connections between commodification and identity. For Value Study: Uniforms, I used piña, or pineapple cloth, to play with its rich history within Philippine culture. The pineapple is not native to the Philippines and was brought by the Spanish to grow and export during the colonial period. Piña and embroidered piña became a valuable export for the European market, thus quickly becoming a marker of class within the Philippine colonies.

Multo (Apparitions)

One aspect of modern Philippine culture that clearly points to the entanglements of identity and capital is the prevalence of “overseas contract work” amongst Filipinos. Overseas contract workers (OCWs), also known as overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), are Philippine citizens who work abroad, under contract, for a set amount of time. These jobs offer an opportunity for higher wages from countries with favorable exchange rates when spent in the Philippines. In addition, the Philippine government has encouraged this exportation of labor with favorable incentives for OFWs (discount housing, etc.), thus creating one of the biggest diaspora populations today at around 11 million.

The highest proportion of these workers are in domestic service, largely taken on by women, accounting for roughly a quarter of all OFWs. Though the Philippine government hail OFWs as “mga bagong bayani” (new heroes), largely due to their economic contribution to the Philippine economy, these positions are rife with abuse and exploitation. From the International Labor Organization’s report on domestic workers:

 
"Domestic work is one of the most important sources of employment for Philippine women both in the country and abroad. About one-quarter of Philippine workers deployed overseas every year enter domestic service. Concern for their safety and protection from abuse is particularly strong in the Philippines in the aftermath of the execution of Flor Contemplacion, a Philippine domestic worker in Singapore in 1995. Indeed, the hidden nature of domestic work within the private sphere of the employers’ household and the informal employment arrangements often practiced, make domestic workers particularly vulnerable to exploitation, and in some circumstances, to forced labour and trafficking." (Sayres 2)

Because of the “hidden nature” of domestic work, the abuses of power within these spheres on domestic workers is largely unknown outside of the Philippines. 

In Value Studies: Multo (Apparitions), I wanted to highlight the invisibility of this labor force and question how we got to this moment of large-scale exportation of Philippine labor. I researched hours of YouTube content produced by OFWs in domestic service. Several OFWs would film themselves working, illuminating the extent of their labor for others wanting to become OFWs. I was able to gather enough clips of OFWs working in regions with the largest concentrations of OFWs in domestic service to create this series. Using a separate digital camera, I created these “ghostly apparitions” by doing a slow exposure of the Youtube videos.

Flag Studies (In Progress)

This ongoing series of flags explores the many facets and complicated history that inform Philippine cultural value, national identity, economic value, and statecraft. 

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Thea's Curated Collection

This artist has not yet created a curated collection.