Pamilya - May 1st, 1898, in remembrance of the period of American colonization of the Philippines which began on this day; May 1st, 1934, in observance of the Philippine Independence Act which took effect on this day, 2022, 10 ft x 3 ft x 3 ft, Resin, paper pulp, paper clay, video projection, printed image, wood, LED diodes, and sound
Nicolei Buendia Gupit
Artist Statement
As a multidisciplinary artist, I make works that speculate on diasporic futures by uncovering personal & collective histories, entangling our relationships to food & culture, and bridging connections through our shared sense of belonging. My body of work incorporates elements from two distinct but intimately tied cultures: Filipino and American cultures. I combine, embed, reshape, and reconfigure objects and materials to express the cultural hybridity central to my cultural and ethnic identity. They come to fruition as installations made up of paper pulp, resin, and plaster casts that replicate existing objects. At times, these objects trace back to memories of my diasporic family’s home while other times they invite viewers to imagine potential futures. Drawing upon my Filipino heritage and my experience growing up in Los Angeles, my works of art speak to the social and colonial ties that connect many immigrant and diasporic communities around the globe. The mixture of low and high technologies in my body of work reflect the contradictions that exist in formerly colonized regions in the world like the Philippines. As production continues to spread unevenly throughout the world, global capital and global labor come at odds with each other, leading to those contradictions: visible amalgamations of the past and the present. As a whole, my works telescope from the personal to the global to draw attention to how immigrant and diasporic communities respond to the various socioeconomic pressures placed on them by global capitalism.