The building of empires and nations through colonization has always fascinated me. The previous work, ‘Desert Bloom - Gold Rush’ put me on a journey researching California as the land of Native Americans, as a pre-statehood territory of the Spanish Empire, as a stage for the westward advance of American colonies. Migration has always been a constant with cultures, even those deeming themselves ‘native’ to a land, as any ancestry is linked to movement literally across the globe. We are all linked to the first migrations of modern humans beginning around 100,000 years ago out of Africa.
I am the product, genetically and culturally, of colonization. I am a descendant of an extended family in the Philippines, once part of the US Commonwealth, and before that, a colony of the Spanish Empire for almost 400 years. My 23 and Me genetic analysis shows I am not only of Malay, Indonesian, and Filipino but Chinese, Spanish, English, French and German with a tiny bit of Native American ancestry. For centuries, Spain maintained trade with Asia through the port of Manila, from which Spanish galleons regularly sailed back and forth to Acapulco, Mexico, then known as the Viceroyalty of Spain.
The latest piece, ‘The Signing’, is based on a famous painting by Howard Chandler Christy depicting the signing of the US Constitution, signed by all ‘founding fathers’ except Thomas Jefferson. The Bill of Rights soon followed. I was fascinated by how these ‘founding fathers’, predominantly wealthy white men, many of whom were slave owners, ended up building the foundation of government and concepts of individual rights. They are quite the contrast to the broad diversity of LGBTQ, Me Too, Black Lives Matter America. It’s safe to say those guys did not have people like me, a gay person of color, in mind, regarding the Bill of Rights.
Individual freedom and equality are yet potentially volatile, even in 2020. Having witnessed the demonstrations over George Floyd’s death, expanding the Black Lives Matter movement around the world, having experienced racism and homophobia in my own life, I wanted to somehow use fragments of Christy’s painting with the founding fathers to comment on the fragility of ideals. Equality is still something that must be fought for and built upon, constantly evolving,
