Blue Remnants Installation View 1 (Tenaciously of Place and Spanish Colonization)

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Artist: Connie Heller

Title: Blue Remnants Installation View 1 (Tenaciously of Place and Spanish Colonization)

Attribution: Tenaciously of Place and Spanish Colonization, 2024, Connie Cagampang Heller

Year: 2024

Materials: Sixty panel installation of 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: 1100 SF (variable).

Image Statement: When my father returned to the Philippines, I was left with only scattered memories and fragments of rituals, sounds, gestures and tastes of belonging. Through this collection of work, I wonder, is this personal loss and disorientation entirely distinct from experiences shared by repeatedly colonized and displaced peoples the world over? Is it possible to reclaim a semblance of continuity by resuscitating our history and thus asserting our right to exist? Slowly and methodically, I search both personal and public archives seeking insights that have been lost to time—often through purposeful destruction and displacements caused by serial colonization and its unsettling wake. I dye, layer and stitch, inviting the past into our present, claiming memories that haunt my existence and seeking ghosts with whom I want to be in conversation. In Blue Remnants, I try to make sense of the histories and cultures that shape my every day, but that I struggle to know.