Landings was inspired by watching my mother cut food among the multiple cutting boards laid on the floor while we prepared a Thanksgiving feast. The sight of blood and different food juices in the channels metaphorically looked like gutters and landings for culture, both culinary and bacterial. In many ways, our plate reflected these multiple landings on our immigrant table.
The first grouping of boards were incised and then burnt with gun powder as I thought about cultural absences, past conflicts, tragedies both personal and historical. The second version in sandblasted marble, planted with moss with morphed channels, became a portable memorial to my mother as well as a tribute to the contributions of immigrant cultures living in the U.S.

Piñata as Self was made as a site-specific installation at the Old L.A. Zoo. Dressed in drag and hung on a tall tree, this self-portrait piñata seems benign at first sight. One can imagine children destroying this effigy for a sweet reward, while also revealing the conditioning of children with cruel acts, and specter of gay bashing in public parks.

Banderitas de Fiesta reclaims this seemingly innocuous piece of paper in public toilets that is meant to protect the individual from germs and disease. This prophylactic plays into the fear of the dirty, immigrant, other. Strung high like Philippine pahiyas and fiesta banderitas, they insist on becoming queer, celebratory symbols. In one grouping, I pierced a decorative deisgn into the toilet seat cover making it a permeable boundary between the individual and the perceived other.

Cirilo Domine

Cirilo Domine