Unsettling Imaginaries: The Decolonial Diaspora Aesthetics of Four Contemporary Filipinx Visual Artists in Canada

In the dominant Canadian imaginary, Filipinx subjects are largely seen as serving the neoliberal priorities of the nation’s economy, which figure the Filipinx as always on the periphery of full national belonging. As a counternarrative, this study examines the practices and oral histories of four Filipinx artists in Canada: Leslie Supnet, Marigold Santos, Julius Poncelet Manapul, and Kuh Del Rosario. To understand the ways in which these racialized and diasporic artists respond to nonbelonging, the researcher utilizes contextual analysis that weaves together interpretations of the artists’ work and their oral histories, which are read through the lens of contemporary art criticism and cultural studies. Key findings reveal that these artists activate their discontent in productive ways that disrupt normative notions of whiteness, sexuality, gender, nuclear family, and nationalisms. Their subject positions are in excess to the dominant stereotypes that persist in the midst of racist and colonial discourses enmeshed in the political, social, and cultural dimensions of Canadian society. Further, this study suggests that Filipinx artists in Canada are complicating visibility politics by adopting non-objective and feminist self- representations. Taken together, this research evidences what the author calls a “decolonial diaspora aesthetic.” Ultimately, they are unsettling dominant conceptions of Filipinx-ness that work to manage difference within the nation’s white settler colonial dominance. The study capaciously draws implications for pedagogy, as this project offers new imaginaries that take into account race, diaspora, and difference in ethical ways that promote antiracism and decolonial relations in Canada.Ph.D.2020-07-10 00:00:0