Abstract
In an era preoccupied with artificial intelligence, questions of authenticity and embodied truth have become more urgent than ever. This paper offers a contextual review of the works of three Filipina artists, Pacita Abad, Martha Atienza, and Wawi Navarroza, whose practices explore embodied knowledge and storytelling within the diasporic experience. Drawing on their distinct yet interwoven narratives, this review examines how art can serve as a medium for authenticity, connection, and repair, both personally and collectively. Through textile, video, and photography, these artists create spaces for remembering, for anchoring identity amidst displacement, and for forging solidarity across shared cultural memory. This inquiry also asks whether the act of contextual review itself can be a generative practice, one that supports artists in connecting to their own creative capacities. Can art be a process of remembering ourselves through the echoes of others’ stories? Ultimately, this paper positions art not merely as representation, but as an active and ongoing process, a dialogue between what is present and what is still unfolding. In a fragmented world where isolation is pervasive, it explores how art can be a powerful site for locating connection, authenticity, and belonging.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
The Arts in Social, Political, and Community Life
KEYWORDS
Embodied Knowledge, Diasporic Storytelling in Art, Cultural Identity, Belonging, Authenticity
