Kandingan, 108 in x 108 in

This wall installation of drawings and paintings was an inquiry into the historic and current political tragedies unfolding in the southern Philippines, and the region’s lunatic contradictions of union and separation, of loveliness and violence. “Kandingan” is a Muslim wedding dance indigenous to the region.

The central figure of the woman holding up her bandaged hand is Leah Cabullo, a journalist on the island of Jolo, Sulu Province, who was following the proceedings of a group of tourists taken hostage by local kidnappers in summer 2000. Cabullo cut off one of her fingers and wrote a letter to the kidnappers in blood, appealing to them to release an elderly female German tourist who was suffering under their watch.

The piece mixes images of Cabullo in various stages of lopping her finger off with illustrations of dancers performing the Kandingan, scatterings of tropical flowers and coconuts, beheadings (regular occurrences in the area), and dance diagrams. Everything is organized over a large round diagram form that I took from a handbook on Filipino behavior and psychology.