Charleston Daulo
“All Roads Lead Home”
This piece is my depiction of the loss of innocence at a younger age. In today’s society, young children are bombarded with images, sounds, media, music, and many other things. Their innocence is stripped away from them before they can realize it. When these kids grow older, they are at times more violent and more prone to premature sexual encounters. The age that children begin to think about women, sex, and violence is quickly decreasing. Manufacturers are constantly releasing products that will appeal to a younger demographic. In the end, they are simply trying to get new customers that will buy their products. They are not mindful of the types of media/games they release. Although there is an age rating for each game, most parents do not pay attention to them or the children will somehow find away to play them. I am not saying that children should not participate in these types or media I am simply stating a fact of society that has no current solution to the issue.
But, it is never too late to find oneself. All roads lead home simply means that wherever or whatever one’s home is, there will be a path that will lead to it. The baby in the piece is my nephew and he is in fact, relocating to the Philippines and the picture that he is attempting to grab hold of is his roots, and the road that he is being pulled away from. The empty chair represents the emptiness that one feels when they have come to the realization that they are far from where they began, but nonetheless, all roads lead home.
Vince Esteves
Mentality
This piece means so much to me because I’ve seen this happen to so many people. Also, this piece works in the reverse direction. When most people leave the states to go back home, they get a sense of re-connection. Going back, or even visiting for the first time, is monumental in one’s identity as a fil-am. The boxes come and go through the sky everyday with a mentality that seems to change within 12-14 hours. This piece is enigmatic depending on how you look at it. There is no distinction whether the change is for the better of worse, but the main message is that the change exists.
Erick Perez
Hardware
I began this assignment without any prior knowledge of what life may be like for Filipino-American citizens and Filipino immigrants in the US. As a Mexican-American, however, I knew that Filipino-Americans have experienced injustices in the US just like I have as a minority as well. For that reason, I knew I wanted to create a collage that made others aware of the injustices minorities must overcome while living in the US. More specifically, I wanted to learn about the way Filipino-American minorities have been treated unjustly.
After much research on Filipino history, I found pain in discovering that many male Filipino Immigrants were given the opportunity to receive US citizenship by joining the arm forces and combating in war. I found this opportunity for Filipinos to be less as a benefit to them and more as a benefit to the US population. I began to see how the US did not see these people as actual human-beings but as tools and machines that could help the US win in war. They did not care about the lives of these people, they wanted to be successful in war and did not care if the Filipino populated died for it.
I used the metaphor for tools as a way of making a statement that proved that Filipinos where seen as nothing more than tools, tools as their disposal.
Narciso Hilo
With my subject in mind, I searched the Internet for any information I could find that pertained to Lapu Lapu. Eventually I found an image of his sculpture in Lapu-Lapu City (formerly town of Opon) in Cebu and I thought it would be perfect for me to render onto paper.
I chose a red sheet of paper to begin my drawing as well as charcoal because I thought it would provide the shading I was hoping to obtain. As I finished drawing his head, shoulders, and chest, I had to decide if I wanted to complete the drawing on red paper or to change the color. After 5 minutes of pondering, I chose to change the colors and picked orange and turquoise for the completion of the project. Last, I knew that the top of Lapu Lapu’s shield would not fit on the red paper so I decided to put a white boarder around the entire drawing. I thought this was a good idea since it made all of the white shading in the drawing stand out. Last, I shaded in his loincloth with the brick-orange charcoal for contrast.
I successfully challenged my artistic abilities with this project because I never tried layering paper for a dramatic effect and I got more experience shading. I was also able to further my knowledge about the Philippine’s first national hero by researching him as my subject.
Nancy DiCianni
From A Place of Unknowing
Assumption: deception in the unknown
I wanted to express this disconnected, fragmented and unknowing sense that I felt in the sprit of the Philippines, and Filipinos, and to do so in a rhetorical visual juxtaposition of binary themes that are ubiquitous in our culture.
My mixed media piece is the reflection of an outsider. It speaks of the disjointed and unsubstantiated stereotypes that we amalgamate into our lives by the powers of institutional hierarchies. It is the play of faces out of context, I want for an audience to reflect on why these women are represented out of their natural environment, and what that says about what an “outsider” believes, or understands.
Here I have tried to visually compare opposing themes. This is the juxtaposition of assumed notions with the concept of time (present and past). It displays binary opposites literally and figuratively; such as black vs. white, change vs. tradition, future vs. past, misconceptions vs. truth.
Coming from a place of unknowing, I was able to challenge what I thought, and question what I do believe, all the while making no assumptions about any one, yet trying to understand that which I am becoming more familiar with, through projects like this.
Jessica Ringer
Reflection: Across Countries
There are hundreds of ways to explain a story, but using an image always can help get the message across. For our art project, we had to use imagery to reveal a story relating to the Philippines. In my piece, I am try to show the migration of Filipinos to America in the early 1900s.
Much of my concept for this first art project came to me from the guest lecturer we had last Wednesday from San Francisco State University (SFSU). The Professor from SFSU said that many Filipinos came to America to look for work and a better life. What many of the Filipinos had hoped for became the same working conditions and labor that they had back home in the Philippines.
My project is a map. By using a map, I wanted to show how the Philippines and California are slow closely positioned and only separated by an ocean. I burnt the edges to make it appear older. What I am trying to convey is several different messages. I really wanted to work with a map to give viewers a sense of the relationship of the Philippines and the United States. During the early 1900s, many Filipinos migrated to the United States looking for work and a better life.
Worlds In Collision students at work on their art for PROJECT 1:
PROJECT 1: TELLING/RE-TELLING
IN-CLASS: M 1/29, M 2/05
CRIT/DUE: M 2/12
So much of Filipino-American history is buried, or invisible. Making visual work returns events to visibility.
This is a warm-up project: its function is to focus on seeing, telling, and re-telling.
On Monday January 29th, please bring a photo, or if you prefer, several photos that you associate with Filipino/Fillipino-American culture. The images can be family snapshots, friends, historical photos, food, sports, you name it. (If you are struggling to find images, Google is your new best friend.) You do not have to possess a deep knowledge of the image you choose, but it must compel you visually in some way. You are not expected to know everything about the image: making art is often an excuse to simply investigate a subject.
This project has a total of only 6 in-class hours. You are welcome to work outside of class, but as we’re hitting you with a substantial amount of reading early on, it would be prudent to scale this project to a manageable size (ie, no need for a magnum opus). Later projects will have more time, and be more ambitious. Look at this project as an investigative exercise.
This is a 2-dimensional project on paper.
It should include some elements of drawing, but is not required to be entirely drawn.
Scale, and number of sheets (1 is fine, some may want more) is up to you.
Criteria for success on Project 1:
- Emotional/intellectual engagement with the subject/image
- Incorporation of hand-drawn elements into your piece
- 2 weeks of effort and investment (6 class hours minimum)
- complex investment in idea, theme and execution
- written reflection/artist statement
Worlds In Collision took a Valentine's Day field trip to Saint Mary's College in Moraga, for the exhibition
