In many local Philippine myths, the bakunawa, an enormous snake-dragon, swallows six out of the seven moons in the sky. Only the final moon, the sky’s sole survivor, continues on.
Etched in unreadable patterns based on indigenous Philippine scripts, a ceramic “moon” is brushed in ink and rolled across a canvas. Its patterns guide the flow of additional calligraphy brush strokes to create an unusual ink painting.
The thrice colonized and the brutal subjugation of the Philippines has yielded many ongoing consequences, including the loss of much oral history, historical ceramic objects, and living connection to the old culture. Like the six moons, much of our historical culture has been devoured and lost. It becomes indecipherable, and must be reconstructed through guesstimates and speculation. But this is our creative inheritance–the ability to reach for something lost, ink it, unravel it, reinterpret it, and use it as a tool for further creation.
Julian Udine 