Contact Tracing
This work invites the audience to ‘play’ - to touch and feel the smoothness of the bottle and to experience deeming
of uncertainty as the fragile bottle rotates and slides on slippery soap bubbles… Ooops!
Warning: maintain social distancing; and leave nothing but, fingerprints.
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCE? Let truth be told that Ferdinand Magellan did not discover the Philippines, instead he merely landed in our shores on March 16, 1521, exactly 500 years ago.His exploration successfully circumnavigated the world, a revelation that the world is round! There were a number of European Explorers - mostly Spanish and Portuguese - whose motto was ‘crystal clear’ — for God, Gold, and Glory — they had the ambition to colonize: to spread Christianity; to accumulate wealth; and to build a name for themselves and for their country. These Iberian pathfinders planned their exploration ‘smoothly’— where bankers and a clergy were included in the crew - all geared up like knights in ‘shining’ armor, sailing in the blue ocean - causing ‘splashes and foam of bubbles’ on parts of the globe where only a sailing prowess could do.
The consequence of Magellan’s surprise visit to our islands was unfortunate, he lost his precious life in the hands of Lapu Lapu in a skirmish fight among the natives. Five decades after, Miguel Lopez de Legaspi came and governed the Philippines. The greatest consequences in the lives of the Filipinos: Spanish colonization for 333 years brought impoverishment in many forms; loss of land; loss of lives, not to mention the life of Jose Rizal; loss of long-held religious beliefs and culture; loss of gold and wealth; and loss of other community assets.
As the world revolves and rotates, and as truth and consequence conflate… the voyage of Magellan opened the world up to global transportation - by ‘contact tracing’ - Magellan Strait was established and considered the most important passage between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Exchange of settlements happened and unfortunately, slavery, warfare, pandemics and conquest thrived… in history?
