Think Piece

Probing the Intersections of ‘Becoming’ Filipino and Tangata Tiriti: Art in the City

Louise Anne Salas

In late February, the Philippine Studies Network (PH Studies NZ) led an art walk titled Sighting the City, Citing Ourselves. Organised in line with the Network’s flagship program called Pag(m)ulat, a Tagalog portmanteau meaning ‘to awaken’ on the one hand, and ‘to report’, on the other; our aim was to design a programme that would touch on the seeming disconnect that some Filipino peers have with their cultural identity as Filipinos living in New Zealand. Probing the intersections of our identities as tangata tiriti and as Filipinos, we thought of engaging public art in the city–relatively visible and accessible, landmarks that we might walk past everyday–as a pathway from which we can seek out connections in a country that more than a hundred-thousand strong Filipinos now call home.

But where do we begin, and where could we possibly locate the image of the ‘Filipino’ in the city?

Drawing on Pacific connections through a tour of selected public art in Auckland CBD, we traversed notions of identity and mobility, as evinced in the act of walking. Our colleague, AUT lecturer and PH Studies NZ founding member Dr. Eunice Gaerlan, regards this activity as ‘walking pedagogy’ where participants embarked on active learning, one that is ‘lived, contextual, personal, creative, integral and embodied.’ Introducing thematic prompts in sighting artworks and their meanings, we hoped participants would discover a compelling point of encounter – a relatable space where we could examine our own experiences and narratives as sources of validation and empowerment. 

Journey

Our small but diverse group of participants met at the edge of Queen’s Wharf, near Michael Parekōwhai’s The Lighthouse. The blue green waters of the Waitematā Harbour, the sight of vessels and containers amid a sprawling cityscape from where we stood was reminiscent of a moment captured in Souvenirs by Filipino visual artist Mark Salvatus, a lens-based work which we had asked the participants to watch as a pre-tour activity. Marking the start of our walk was a work about journeys–a collection of images taken by a Filipino seafarer (the artist’s uncle) in his many years of sojourn around the world on board a ship. While it weaves a personal story, it intimates the plight of a legion of Filipinos who continue to labour in the global maritime industry; as well as recalls ancient voyaging traditions held by island nations, such as the Philippines and New Zealand.

Like the seafarer’s journey in Salvatus’s video, we encouraged participants to think of their own vessel/waka/balangay as a point of departure from where they could view the city and its landmarks purposively rather than randomly. Our own gesture of walking marked the movement from one location to the next, recalling the objects that we carry with us, the people we leave behind, the change that transpires within and around us, and why we journey in the first place. In our post-tour debrief, Dr. Sarah Jane Lipura, our network convenor, spoke about the relevance of personal migration stories. These are enriched by the act of citation–a scholarly, but also basic practice of acknowledging precedence, indicating the importance of establishing relations, and finding a sense of history in one’s own journey. Citational practice can perhaps be a way of relating to whakapapa–a cherished concept in te ao Māori referring to genealogy–a multi-layered connection to ancestors, people, and place.

Encounter

Journeys are marked by encounters–meetings and exchanges, including clashes and acknowledgment of colonial pasts. These are inevitable in the city, which, as a physical space, registers such movements and tensions. The largest (yet somewhat inconspicuous) public art in the city centre, Te Komititanga (to mix, to merge) exemplifies the meeting of waters of the now underground Waihorotiu Stream and Waitematā Harbour. A thousand basalt pavers forming a whāriki (welcome mat), accentuates the place as a transport hub where people arrive, depart, rest, and move about. The overwhelming scale of the public square is offset by the woven pattern on the ground, demarcating it as an intimate space of potential interaction. Moy Laddaran, a Filipino postgraduate student who has lived in Auckland for almost a year, remarked how the walk defamiliarised his encounter with the city: ‘I'm starting to see, feel, and experience the place like how a local here would experience it. But after the event, the city seems new to me. I started to see a different side of it through the sections of the city that I would just take for granted.’ Z Langit, an undergraduate student and FSA (Filipino Students Association) member shares a similar insight: ‘(the walk) made me realise that art is important to the urban space, since I don’t pay attention to it going to the city everyday.’ Another participant was struck by Molly Macalister’s dignified depiction of A Māori Figure in Kaitaka Cloak, a bronze statue fronting Britomart Transport Centre. She recalled the heroic monuments of Lapu-lapu which she encountered as she was growing up in Cebu City. Lapu-lapu is the chief of Mactan islands in the Philippines who led the defeat of the Spanish fleet helmed by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in the 16th century.

Reclamation

Much of the artworks we covered in the walk are examples of contemporary Māori art–recent art that often blends the visual languages of customary forms and western art, and made by Māori artists. The communicative and affective value of art enables artists to participate in the restorative process of reclamation–a reassertion of repressed aspects of identity, such as language, culture, even important sites that were undermined under the mantle of urban development and colonisation. Reclamation also calls to mind human intervention on nature–such as the physical transformation of Tāmaki Makaurau which expanded its landarea by reclaiming its original foreshore beginning in the 19th century. Passing through the streets and landmarks where Waihorotiu stream flowed, our colleague and PH Studies NZ founding member Dr. Maricar Bautista was struck by the sheen of the modernist anchor stone by Fred Graham, its reflective surface resonant of the act of remembering, and remarked on the beauty and economic value of daylighting once covered bodies of water, such as the Cheongyecheon stream in Seoul. For geographer and professor JC Gaillard, our co-facilitator, the prominent circle atop the anchor stone reminded him of the significance of the circle in Austronesian cultures.

Epilogue

As seen in the concealment of the stream or the foreshore reclamation, Professor Gaillard astutely observed how culture subverts nature, and how nature in turn reclaims itself through works of art. As a facet of culture, we saw here the capacity of art to resurface memories and diminished narratives, and to become a vehicle for conversation, if not reconciliation.

Our final stop was Aotea Centre, where we had our post-tour debrief. Selwyn Muru’s Waharoa signals that I am welcome as a manuhiri (visitor), a Filipino woman finding her way in Aotearoa. As part of my own pagmulat (awakening), the words of a well-respected art historian, the late Jonathan Mane-Wheoki reminded me of the value of our initiative: ‘The Te Tiriti o Waitangi partnership challenges and commits us all to respect, support, and enrich each other’s cultural inheritance to the best of our ability.’

(Photos by Zhanella Langit and Max Santiagus)