Queen of the Carabao
2018
2-channel digital video (drone footage), colour, sound
30:00 mins
Supported by the CreateNSW Rapid Response Grant
Click here to view an excerpt
Please contact me for the password, or to view video in full
Queen of the Carabao confronts the idea of homecoming and cultural memory. It takes the aesthetics of slow motion as a tool to explore absence, trauma and racial melancholia. The text present throughout the video mythologises a return to the motherland - a moment in time that Garcia experienced, which prompted reflections of cultural displacement and ambiguity, as an uprooted, diasporic entity.
“A person who does not remember where they came from, will never reach their destination.”
- Filipino Proverb
This video work was filmed using drones in Garcia’s father’s ancestral lands, in Pampanga (Philippines) and takes inspiration from Lav Diaz, a Filipino filmmaker and key member of the slow cinema movement. It also references karaoke culture, an extremely popular (and at times, violent) pastime in the Philippines.
Garcia collaborated with musician Joshua Icban, who created a soundscape using field recordings from his parents’ home in Pampanga, as well as a Kapampangan pop song.
Exhibition History: Montclair State University Galleries (2023); Warrnambool Art Gallery (2020); Luggage Store Gallery (2019); Darren Knight Gallery, UNSW Galleries (all 2018)
Photo Credits: Installation photography by Simon Hewson, courtesy of Art Month Sydney