Marian Pastor Roces is a
Manila based writer and curator. She presented paper at Culture Shocks: The Future of Culture at Te Papa in 1998 and
recently held a writing fellowship at the University of California.
Spice girls (and boys): mapping and
loving the naked, brown, perfumed,
assertive Pacific body
The paper begins as a
meditation on the sections concerning
the Pacific Ocean islands in the account
of the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan
in 1521 (published as “First Voyage
Around the World”), by the voyage
chronicler Antonio de Pigafetta. It
happens that I write this paper
immediately after curating an exhibition
on power and clothing in 19th century
Philippines, through which I proposed
that Philippine nationalism was imagined
as a putting on of clothes; hence
specifically and elaborately a
counter-discourse on nakedness. ‘Spice
Girls’ is in the wise a shift in my
focus to nakedness itself as a sign of
power that had to be absorbed into
European orders of knowledge. The paper
develops then an outline of a critique
of the Christian Paradise vis-a-vis
the naked body, as this tension suffuses
nationalist longing in the Philippines.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Marian Pastor Roces
is an independent curator and critic
residing in Manila, Philippines. Her
writing on museums, cities, contemporary
art and clothes is published
internationally. She was recently a
writing fellow with the Department of
World Cultures, University of California
in Los Angeles; a member of the team
organized by Columbia University to
assist the province of Yunnan, China in
pushing forward the initiative for a
development plan based on culture; and
part of an advisory group to Center A, a
contemporary art organization in
Vancouver, BC, Canada. With co-author JF
Sibayan, she is presently writing a
book-length critique of textile studies.
Pastor Roces also heads TAO, a
Philippine corporation undertaking
museum and exhibition projects as
engagements to test these technologies
of representation for radical
possibility. Recent curatorial work
includes "Sheer Realities: Power
and Clothing in 19th Century
Philippines," at New York's Grey
Art Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum and
the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.
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