Karen Zalamea

Ensemble is derived from a newspaper image that depicts a row of dancers from the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group of the Philippines. The dancers are performing the ragragsakan, a traditional Kalinga dance in which women carry water pots and baskets in preparation for a feast. For this project, I selected a photograph from the June 12, 1986 issue of The Province that features the Filipino dance group performing as part of Expo ’86 in Vancouver.

I was intrigued by the sister-city relationship established in 1991 between the City of New Westminster and Quezon City in the Philippines, my matrilineal hometown. I learned that the late community leader who spearheaded this official relationship had viewed a performance by this group at Expo ‘86, and it was one of the catalysts that galvanized the pursuit of the sister-city agreement.

For this public installation, I collaged and reproduced the photograph from The Province as a cyanotype. Through this work, I reflected on the framework of the sister city and this language of kinship, not limited to familial ties, but more expansively around our social kinships and expressions of community.

There is a significant Filipino presence in New Westminster, which began in the 1990s, with Tagalog becoming a common mother tongue spoken in the city. The city’s museum collection and archives, however, do not yet reflect this thriving community. In presenting this large-scale image on the façade of a civic building, the work highlights the diversity of Filipino culture and celebrates the presence of the thriving Filipino-Canadian community.

Commissioned by the City of New Westminster and presented in partnership with Capture Photography Festival.