Blue Remnants: Walang Father, Walang Ancestors

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Artist: Connie Heller

Title: Blue Remnants: Walang Father, Walang Ancestors

Attribution: Walang Father, Walang Ancestors, 2023, Connie Cagampang Heller

Year: 2023

Materials: Installation composed of seven overlapping 27” x 72” indigo dyed panels made of silk organza, hand tied and stitched indigo-dyed cotton with hand-sewn thread markings and gold leaf. Each panel is supported by an aluminum rod suspended with microfilament.

Dimensions: 14' x 9' x 2'

Image Statement: In the Blue Remnants series, I try to make sense of the history and culture I inherit as a mixed-race, Filipino-American. My father returned to the Philippines when I was 14 years old to escape the dehumanizing, white supremacist culture of the United States. With him, my direct tie to Filipino culture, food, and language left, defeated. And thus began my experience of never quite belonging, of not quite knowing where to find my cultural inheritance. I was left only with memories. But is this personal experience entirely different from the broader experience of a repeatedly colonized nation where so much history and culture comes in the form of ghosts, tortured memories, and cobbling together a narrative of continuity from what remains?