Blueprint of Dam as Sadistic Monument, 2022 
objects, embroidery and digital print on fabric      
Courtesy the artist 

Cian Dayrit’s work investigates notions of power and identity as they are represented and reproduced in monuments, museums, maps and other institutionalised media. His works often respond to different marginalised communities, encouraging a critical reflection on colonial and privileged perspectives in the Philippines and more broadly. His projects, which combine archival references, protest imagery and grassroots counter-mapping, show how empires scored out the maps of the modern world, how the aftermath perpetuates industrial development, and how alternative territories might be imagined from the ground up.

Blueprint of Dam as Sadistic Monument is a new commission for rivus drawing on Dayrit’s research, activism and community counter-mapping projects around five rivers across the Philippines. All are, or were, threatened by large dams that impede their flow and affect the communities and ecosystems they sustain. They are the Chico river dam/Ampit dam in the Cordillera region; Balog-balog dam in Zambales, Central Luzon region; Kaliwa-Kanan-Laiban dam in Tanay and Quezon provinces; Jalaur dam in Panay island; and Pulangi dam in Mindanao.