1993 APT1 Conference : Identity, tradition and change

delicate belladona of a marble mannequin hung like butcher's merchandise. Cattle-hoofed, her belly is ripped open to reveal a bul-ol, an ancestral creator-god watching over her innards that spilled a harvest of grain. The surprise is that she reconciles the gender paradox into a metaphorical bomb- detonation, an explosion that brings chaos, death, and a resurrected life. Is there no hope for femenizing this patriarchal universe? Jean Marie Syjuco, gutsy heroine of Philippine Performance Art magically transforms herself into a woman redeemer each time she improvises her star-focused ritual. Her visual concepts can be very beguiling such as in her White Crow (1992), wherein an audience seated on stage witnessed an extravaganza of an excruciatingly long massacre of a thousand and one white balloons tied to audience seats at the Cultural Center of the Philippines' (CCP) little theatre. Socially committed Syjuco usually depicts woman first as a victim of inhumane acts or supernatural calamity , then she degenerates into a hysterical madwoman. Soon she is prodded to do acts of violence at times to a symbolic object, such as a decapitated pig's head, piercing its eyes and ears to a bloody mess in Por Kilo (1989) a work on the mail-order bride theme. At all times she does acts of violence to herself. She plunges her own face and body with an avalanche of flour, dirt, sand, broken eggs . Onced she tied her long hair to captivity. At least twice she sheared her own hair to a pitiful sight. Then she miraculously metamorphoses into a high priestess who performs a ritual of exorcising or healing. Her works are highly dependent on costume, props, light , sound and peripheral performances which she skillfully orchestrates to complement her taut gestures and monologue. To feminists, Syjuco' performance would be judged as retrogressive. She sets back the gains of the women's movement each time she depicts woman as turning neurotic when she can no longer bear her woes. Moreover, there is no true redemption in her personification of the Babaylan (native shaman). The positive image of this indigenous wise androgyne- healer was subverted by colonial culture into a suspect witch and Syjuco further maligns this image as one frightfully metamorphosed from a psychopath. My feminist colleague Anna Fer says, "Women are so full of shackles that as artists we become freer and more adventurous than the men". Women's art in the Philippines has undoubtedly become more daring, relevant and innovative. Womanly images and decidedly feminist works will continue to be a dynamic force to a statement of selfhood and power. As we tackle both artistic and gender issues, as we create, examine, and recreate images of ourselves, it should be remembered that we tell ourselves: as feminists we are artists first, and as artists we are women first. Yet one is inseparable from the other. 6