Fly Me to the Moon (Eight Petal Flower)

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Artist: Connie Heller

Title: Fly Me to the Moon (Eight Petal Flower)

Attribution: Fly Me to the Moon (8 petal flower), 2025, Connie Cagampang Heller

Year: 2025

Materials: Indigo dyed panel 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: 50” x 54”

Image Statement: Memories and histories are powerful but fleeting reminders of the past that haunts our everyday with remnants of stories we will never know. Written history may aspire to be a neat narrative of linear progress, but the experiences of war, colonization, transnational migration and the passage of time in the Philippines, as elsewhere, leave a murky wake of partial stories and song fragments seen by the light of an overcast moon. Colonial destruction robs us of compelling details and leaves a disrupted and distorted archive upon which we must build. Descendants, born into the American diaspora, must reclaim and refashion their songs and stories from the fragments found amongst archives, family stories and memories.