Preserving culture in a rapidly developing nation

I once asked Marian Pastor Roces, the Dame of Art Criticism and Curation in the Philippines, how I can help elevate Filipino heritage and culture in the South where I live in the US. She laughed because it is a question she is often asked. In fact, she and Cristina Juan, the Founder and Head of Philippine Studies at the University of London, have been working on practical solutions, one of which is through their Mapping Philippine Material Culture project. As most of the quality Philippine arts and crafts pieces of years past are in private collections in the Philippines or in storage facilities abroad, rarely seen by the public, today’s Filipino artists and craftsmen have never laid eyes on what their ancestors created before them. Through virtual exhibits on the Mapping website, anyone with internet access can freely look, analyze, and see what Filipino artisans once produced. In this way, digitizing rarely seen collections becomes an incredible tool in documenting, preserving, and passing down our culture for the next generations.

As a Research Associate to the Mapping project, I recently supported their work with two museums. For the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, initial contact was made prior to my involvement, and I simply got “the ball rolling again”. For the Cleveland Museum of Art, I was able to liaise with the curator of Southeast Asian Art Sonya Rhie Mace and connect Cristina to her. Not only was Cristina able to update their entire Philippine collection and add that digital exhibit to the Mapping website, but we were able to show renewed interest for some kind of Filipino event at the Museum through local community leaders. This multifaceted collaboration was so successful that Sonya is now working on a proposal for the possibility of a dedicated Filipino exhibit of these objects, a first for this Cleveland Museum.

With the Filipino diaspora growing every year, it is important that Filipino culture workers understand the importance of building and sharing quality resources and creating space and discourse with knowledgeable people in their fields. Marian told me that her seminal book on Filipino textiles has been enjoying a revival 30 years after its publication, with most buyers not in the Philippines but Filipinos living in America, Europe, and the Middle East. Similarly, Features Editor of Vogue Philippines Audrey Carpio also told me that the diaspora makes up a significant part of their magazine’s readership. From long-forgotten collections in storage abroad to Filipinos searching to learn more about their roots, Filipino cultural preservation is not just by and for Filipinos in the Philippines. Filipino cultural preservation has truly become a worldwide effort.