Snare for Birds

Can we be made to be experts of the colonial gaze through the production of new knowledge, through image-making and re-making? If these images have historically been used as evidence of Filipinos’ incapability of self-governance, what do they reveal about Filipinos today? What does it mean to be Filipinos—generations and continents removed—engaging the predecessors today?

Snare for Birds AAG © Ateneo Art Gallery

About the Project

Snare for Birds is the collaborative research art project of Kiri Dalena, Lizza May David, and Jaclyn Reyes, curated by Marika Constantino and Iris Ferrer. It inquires into the tangents of the country’s colonial past, archiving and its impacts on being Filipina. Distinct in their visual languages and methodologies, each artist negotiates their own and the current generation’s positions against an imperial past and present as women residing in the Philippines, Germany, and the United States.

The project is seen neither as a conclusion nor culmination of the research; rather, it is perceived to be a preamble for more avenues of conversations to ensue. This exhibition takes a look at our collective history in order to deal with the present with hopes of forging a just and equitable future. The colonial past, though riddled with pain and adversity, requires persistent disruptions not only to dislocate power structures but to also re-define what is said to be truths.

About the Artists

Kiri Dalena

Kiri Dalena is known for works that lay bare the social inequalities and injustices that continue to persist, particularly in the Philippines. Her involvement in the struggle to uphold human rights amidst state persecution is the foundation for her practice that underscores the relevance of protest and civil disobedience in contemporary society.

© Kimberly Dela Cruz
Lizza May David

Lizza May David is a painter and multidisciplinary artist interested in gaps and silences in personal and collective archives and experiments with forms of activation through abstract painting. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg and at the University of the Arts Berlin and lives and works in Berlin.

© Trinka Lat
Jaclyn Reyes

Jaclyn Reyes is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, cultural organizer, and emerging scholar based in New York City. She received her BFA in Photography from Syracuse University and earned her master’s degree in Arts in Education from Harvard University. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Social Welfare at The City University of New York Graduate Center.

© Jaclyn Reyes

About the Curators

Marika Constantino

Marika Constantino is an artist-curator. In 2017, she was a Global Cultural Fellow of the Institute of International Cultural Relations at the University of Edinburgh and part of a cultural leadership program at the King’s College in London. In 2018, she was a New York Fellow for the Asian Cultural Council. In 2020, Constantino established KANTINA, a space for co-learning and co-creation in Roxas City, Capiz.

© Marika Constantino
Iris Ferrer

Iris Ferrer is an independent cultural practitioner from Manila, Philippines.

© Jimena Gauna

Venues

Ang Panublion Museum

August 06 to 26, 2023
Ang Panublion Museum, Legazpi Street, Roxas City, Capiz
Monday to Sunday, 8am-5pm

Alfredo F. Tadiar Library

September 01 to October 15, 2023
1 F. Ortega Hwy, Tanqui, San Fernando, 2500 La Union
Wednesday to Saturday, 12:30pm-5:30pm

Ateneo Art Gallery

September 16, 2023 to February 17, 2024
Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University
Katipunan Avenue, Quezon City
Monday to Sunday, 9am-5pm

Partners

This project is mounted with support from the Goethe-Institut Manila, Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, co-presented with The Panublion Museum (Roxas City, Capiz), Alfredo F. Tadiar Library and Puón (San Fernando, La Union), and the Ateneo Art Gallery (Metro Manila).