In absentia (Democratic space) Paper installation on brick wall

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In absentia (Democratic space)
Paper installation on brick wall
Ishmael Bernal Gallery, UP Film Institute
Edition 2

Collaboration with Ivan Reverente, Kendrick Bautista and John Francis Losaria

A part of the exhibit Fact Sheet
organized by Artist's ARREST and KARAPATAN
for Cine Veritas 2008

This installation remains dedicated to Karen Empeño, Sherlyn Cadapan and Manuel Merino.

About the work
The use of materials relating to children and education hint at Karen and Sherlyn's home life, as well as their aspirations. Sherlyn was pregnant at the time of her disappearance. Karen's mother is a primary school principal, and was at school when she received news of her daughter's abduction. Both were student leaders during their stay at UP, active in the youth's fight for basic rights like education, housing, health care and freedom of expression. Their shared struggle, one tacitly yet obviously deemed unacceptable by the state, is for a better future for Filipino children.

By using pages from history textbooks and language workbooks, the installation deals with the disjuncture between what is taught and what is learned. In our primary school years, we are taught the rudiments of language and an extremely simplified, even inaccurate version of history. As we grow older, we either see through this and develop a deeper sense of history, or we remain limited by and within this simplistic historical framework. We develop our language skills, and informed by our historical understanding and consequent ideological development, we use them for various ends. Thus, the In Absentia portraits, like the two women in real life, are more than just the sum of their parts. In Karen and Sherlyn's cases, they were able to see beyond the confines of the system they were raised in, and their disappearance is proof of just how far beyond they have went.

The inclusion of children's artwork adds to the sense of contradiction within the work. Children's drawings are often happy and colorful. Yet in this case, they are drab and monotone. The veneer of innocence is ruptured by the fascist gesture of tearing, in the same way that lives are violated by political repression.

Karen and Sherlyn, along with almost 200 other desaparecidos under the Arroyo regime, are gaping cracks in the state's humane facade. This work aims to keep their memory in the university alive, albeit in absentia. And like how paper and diluted glue poorly adhere to a brick wall, this gesture will never be enough; it will peel and come off in time. Like Karen and Sherlyn's struggle, it is an act which must be continuously repeated and intensified until success renders it unnecessary.

About Karen and Sherlyn
On June 26, 2006, bonnet-wearing armed men, suspected elements of the 7th Infantry Division, forcibly entered a house of local folk in Hagonoy, Bulacan and forcibly abducted Sherlyn, Karen and Manuel Merino, a local farmer. The armed men introduced themselves as ‘vigilantes.’

Sherlyn, who is two months pregnant, was hit in the stomach as she was shouting for help. Witnesses related that the armed men removed Karen’s shirt and used it to cover her face. They dragged the two women outside and rode off in a passenger jeepney vehicle.

Until now, Sherlyn and Karen have not yet surfaced. While the military denied their involvement in their forced disappearance, Major Gen. Jovito Palparan, head of the 7th ID, immediately accused them as members of the New People’s Army. In a statement released after the abduction, Gen. Palparan insultingly said that ‘they are better off gone.”

Sherlyn and Karen are student volunteers who went to Bulacan to conduct research on the peasant situation in the province. They are also known student leaders from the University of the Philippines (UP).

Sherlyn is an award-winning triathlete and a former College of Human Kinetics representative to the UP Diliman Student Council. Karen, on the other hand, is a Sociology major who was conducting reaserch in the province for the completion of her thesis. They are also active members of Anakbayan and League of Filipino Students, respectively. These youth organizations have been maliciously tagged as ‘communist front organizations’ by the Armed Forces of the Philippines.