Eisa Jocson (Philippines)

Art Gallery of New South Wales

Macho 2023
digital print
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from Mercedes U Zobel
Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from Mercedes U Zobel
Courtesy the artist

Bikini 2009–23
oil on canvas
All is vain 2009–23
oil on canvas
Commissioned by the Biennale of Sydney with generous assistance from Mercedes U Zobel
Presentation at the 24th Biennale of Sydney was made possible with generous assistance from Mercedes U Zobel
Courtesy the artist

In Filipino horror films and folklore, mythical monsters or shape-shifters are known as Aswang. They can take various forms, such as a bat, boar or vampire, and, at times, a mother, wife or sister. Perhaps the most iconic example of the Aswang woman is Mananaggal, who, tearing her torso from her bottom half, leaves her legs in place as she flies off in search of unborn children to feast upon.

For Eisa Jocson, the Aswang-ification of the female form is symptomatic of the colonial and patriarchal interest in presenting women, especially ‘Filipinas’ (a Hispanised term for women from the Philippines) as ‘savage’. In Bikini, the half-body of Mananaggal is transformed into an atomic eruption. In All is vain, a woman lounges before a similar scene of obliteration. Confronting the history of American atomic testing in the Pacific – part of the same colonial project that saw five decades of American domination in the Philippines – Jocson simultaneously alludes to ideas of female monstrosity.

Baroque-era vanitas paintings, present in the Philippines during the earlier colonial regime under Spain, were created around the idea of memento mori (‘remember, you must die’) – a sentiment co-opted by Jocson less as a reminder than as a threat, full-throated and feminine.

Eisa Jocson is a contemporary choreographer and dancer from the Philippines. Trained as a visual artist, and with a background in ballet, Jocson exposes body politics in the service and entertainment industry as seen through the unique socioeconomic lens of the Philippines. She studies how the body moves and what conditions make it move – be it social mobility or movement out of the Philippines through migrant work. In all her creations – from pole to macho dancing and hostess to Disney princess to Superwoman to zoo animals – capital is the driving force of movement pushing the indentured body into spatial geographies. A host and disruptor, her practice is an embodied archive of Filipino labour.

Read more about the 24th Biennale of Sydney, Ten Thousand Suns, by purchasing the catalogue here.