A teacher once asked if I lived on the dirty side of the Philippines, I had to think what she meant—if she meant a part easier to ignore homeless kids on the streetsides with cardboard blankets curled up like street dogs; if dirty meant poor meant eating rice with soy sauce ‘cause mama couldn’t afford meat; if poor meant illiterate meant when my dad dropped high school and did drugs instead; if illiterate meant stupid meant when his brother grew up not knowing how to read and write; if stupid meant me in that new white school barely knowing English, I felt like a weathered rock knuckled down when I pronounced a word wrong from a sheet of paper to a shit of paper—I was smoothed away to my smallest form to the point I said, “no, I do not come from the dirty side.” I carried myself upright as if I always had access to clean clothes, to clean water, to a clean life.
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To Be Dirty
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Statues and the Colonised Mind
Statues do many things. They tell or repress a story about the past. They tell us about ourselves. They make us feel uneasy or can inspire. Scenes of sculptural epiphanies and distress, as well as, defiance, acknowledge that engaging with statues is not always easy or enjoyable.
