A performance installation by Ryan Tacata Lolas explored notions of cultural assimilation and resistance through one lola’s garden, an assemblage of found materials, religious icons and constructed identities. Performed at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
Ryan Tacata Lolas was a performance installation
exploring notions of cultural assimilation
and resistance through one lola’s garden,
an assemblage of found materials,
religious icons and constructed identities.
Lola,
the Filipino/Tagalog word for grandmother,
serves as the center of Ryan Tacata’s latest work,
which explored the complicated and sacrosanct figure
of the grandmother in Philippine culture
as well as an inheritance of racial discrimination,
Catholic guilt and queer identities.
Using photographs of his lola’s garden
and objects gathered after her death,
the artist reconstructed her garden
within the Asian Art Museum
as a site for live tableaus;
poetic readings pulled from her writings
on faith, love and death;
and a stage for other lolas or lola figures
from the local Filipino community to perform.
Thursday, July 20th, 6:30pm
Asian Art Museum
San Francisco
Performers: Ryan Tacata, Jøse Abad, Maria Melinda Dávid
and Tante Tacata
Sound Artist Derek Phillips
Hosted by Marc Mayer with the Asian Art Museum