The Ninth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

39 ARTISTS Our Islands 11°16’58.4”N 123°45’07.0”E (stills) 2017 Single-channel HD video, 72 minutes, colour / Installed dimensions variable / Courtesy: The artist and Silverlens Galleries, the Philippines Born 1981, Manila, the Philippines Lives and works on Bantayan Island, the Philippines, and in Rotterdam, the Netherlands As a dreamlike journey beneath the sea, Martha Atienza’s Our Islands 11°16’58.4”N 123°45’07.0”E 2017 recreates an annual event that takes place in the artist’s hometown on the Philippines’s Bantayan Island. The Ati-Atihan festival was a pre-Catholic, animistic festival originating with the Aeta or Ati. 1 After Spanish colonisation, the festival became one to honour the Santo Niño (the infant Jesus), whose likeness is blessed by the local priest and carried through the village by participants. Atienza and her brothers grew up in the small fishing village of Madridejos and in Rotterdam, with her sea captain father often absent. Atienza returned to the island after an extended absence, and was struck both by the unique nature of the festival and the effects of climate change on her home — evident in the encroaching shoreline and the dwindling supply of once-plentiful fish. As a result, villagers now resort to illegal fishing methods and compression diving, using hoses linked to makeshift apparatus to descend to seemingly impossible ocean depths. For the Ati-Atihan festival in Madridejos, the men wear elaborate and often humorous costumes, which they create themselves and change every year in response to current events. Atienza began recording the festival in 2010 for the video archive ‘Anito’. At the same time, she was making video installations reflecting on life aboard the seafaring vessels of the Philippines and its people. In Our Islands , these aspects of her practice come together. After months of practice and planning, Atienza shot the footage for Our Islands . Some of the men float past the cameras gracefully, like the Santo Niño in his flowing red dress. Others trample unevenly across the dying coral — the placard-wearing survivor of super typhoon Yolanda is attended by a white-coated doctor, an ungainly maid in a floral dress drags a suitcase, and a drug dealer carrying a placard warning ‘don’t emulate me’ is followed by members of President Duterte’s anti-drug squad pointing guns at his head. Each of the actors has a story that is familiar to the artist. Orlando Abrasado’s long hair floats behind him in the current; he lost his first baby daughter to illness, and vowed not to cut his hair until he was blessed with another daughter. He is the father of 13 sons. Projected onto plexiglass, Our Islands immerses the viewer in a silent and mesmerising experience where the subjects appear to exist in real time on the other side of the screen. Martha Atienza’s passion for her home and the plight of her people is conveyed with subtlety and urgency. Our Islands is part of a larger ongoing project — to unite the people of the small islands of South-East Asia, Oceania and the Pacific, and enable them to confront shared social, economic and environmental issues. 2 These island nations are the first frontier to experience the tangible effects of rising sea levels and subsequent threats to their homes and livelihoods. Abigail Bernal Endnotes 1 The Aeta, or Ati, are an ancient people known locally as ‘negritos’ due to their diminutive stature, dark skin and curly hair. Ati-Atihan means ‘to be like Atis’ or ‘make believe Atis’. Other Ati-Atihan festivals take place in the Philippines, mixing Catholic rituals with indigenous costumes and performance; the contemporary costumes worn by the men in Madridejos set it apart from other celebrations. 2 In a 2017 interview, Atienza commented: ‘The issues we’re dealing with are not things you address with one art piece’; see ‘Martha Atienza’s sub-aquatic procession wins in Art Basel’, BluPrint , 13 July 2017, <http:// bluprint.onemega.com/martha-atienza-art-basel-2017/> , viewed May 2018. MARTHA ATIENZA