Jean Claire Dy
Waves of Time and Sea
2021
Single-channel video, lucky cat figurines with audio
3 mins
Variable dimensions
Jean Claire Dy’s works look into trauma and histories of conflict, particularly in relation to the history of Mindanao, the southernmost island group of the Philippine archipelago. Her newly commissioned work for the exhibition considers the unique relationship of Sulu, a smaller archipelagic formation located in the southeastern tip of Mindanao, with China during pre-Hispanic times. According to recorded history, Paduka Batara, the Sultan of Sulu, visited the Ming Emperor Yong Le in Beijing in 1417. On the way back, the Sultan fell sick and died in Shandong. After an imperial burial, the Sultan’s sons were allowed to stay in China and intermarried with local Chinese. Dy takes two texts relevant to this history, namely, “a copy of Qing Emperor Qian Long’s reply to Sulu Sultan Muhammed Alimud Din’s request found in the document 476 of Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty and the scroll with the imperial edict of Emperor Yong Le edifying the Sultan,” and creates an audiovisual installation that attempts to parse the lineations of this relationship, foregrounding a Filipino-Chinese dynamic that focuses on hospitality and diplomacy against the more contemporary tenor of Chinese neocolonial infringement on Philippine economic and maritime affairs. These considerations are read against modes of affinities that antedate national configurations and identities. The texts are translated into sound and video, sketching out an “imaginary space” that offers her the chance to explore the itinerant and performative conditions of both her Chinese-ness an Filipino-ness. She uses the ubiquitous lucky cat figurine, a good luck charm in the shape of a cat waving its paw that are usually displayed in most Filipino-Chinese-owned storefronts, to anchor her explorations of Filipino-Chinese identity, foregrounding how its performances and navigation is deeply embedded in popular culture and contemporary urban life.
Jean Claire Dy is a Filipino-Chinese filmmaker, media artist, writer, and educator from Mindanao, Philippines. She holds a Masters degree in Media Studies and Film from the New School in New York which she completed under the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program. She is currently a fellow of the Scottish Documentary Institute’s Connecting Stories Program. Claire’s full length documentary film A House in Pieces won the Golden Hercules Award at the Kasseler Dokfest in Germany and the Best Documentary Award at the Mimesis Documentary Film Festival in the US. Her video installations, experimental films, and media art works have been exhibited in various exhibitions in the Philippines and internationally. Her other films have been screened in various festivals worldwide. In 2021, she was an artist resident at the Belgrade Art Studio Online Residency Program. She will be commencing her PhD in Fine Arts and Music majoring in Film at the Victorian College of Arts of the University of Melbourne in 2022.
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