On September 20, 1985, some 5,000 protestors gathered in Escalante, a city in the province of Negros Occidental in the Philippines, to commemorate the 13th anniversary of President Ferdinand Marcos’s declaration of martial law. The military opened fire, killing 20 and injuring many more.
The Escalante Massacre serves as a touchstone for Offerings for Escalante, a show by Filipino artist Enzo Camacho, whose mother comes from Negros, and American artist Ami Lien at MoMA PS1. Langit Lupa (Heaven Earth) is a 56-minute film commissioned for the show, examining the massacre through the lens of memory and narrative. The title comes from a popular children’s game in the area, presented in the film somewhat like Ring Around the Rosie. “Heaven, Earth, Hell,” the kids recite as they stand in a circle, “Pierce through the heart, see the blood flow.” As they cycle through the lyrics, they point at other kids in the circle, and one becomes “it,” as in tag: “Dead, alive. Who will leave your mother’s place?”
The children serve as a key focal point in the film — we follow them collecting sugarcane, visiting the graves of those who died, and jumping into the ocean. They would be too young to have a direct memory of the massacre, but the generational trauma is all too present. As the opening narrator states, that trauma long preceded the massacre itself, with the arrival of sugar:
But when the sugar industry started [in the province] and because it was a cash crop and was exported abroad, sugar farms were developed in Northern Negros. And the trees were of course cut. This is why there were stumps of trees in that area. And it was converted into sugarcane plantations in that part of the province. It was a massacre of the jungle and a massacre of the environment.
Thus, the offerings in Offerings for Escalante include the earth itself. “Social Volcano (restless waves)” (2024) is a watercolor work mixed with elements like beeswax, banana stalk, lemongrass, and coconut husk. It depicts Mount Kanlaon, the third most active volcano in the Philippines and the origin of life in local mythology, as a living and breathing entity merging with the clouds and vegetation. In “Tiempo Muerto” (2022), the artists portrays a butterfly atop a skull, using materials such as tea leaves, mica, and joss paper. The work’s title, meaning “dead time,” refers to the months of downtime in sugarcane farming, when farmers have no income or work due to monocultural farming’s impact on local flora.
Accompanying the show is an installation made with materials from a number of activist organizations in the Philippines, including two in New York, that work toward the national democratic mass movement, which challenges social inequality through an alliance of workers’ unions, peasant associations, and cultural workers. Photos, music videos and posters adorn the gallery alongside “Daluyong,” a 1984 documentary by Joey Clemente and Nil Buan Jr. about the Lakbayan, or Lakad ng Bayan para sa Kalayaan (People’s March for Freedom), a movement against Marcos.
“The fight for genuine artistic freedom,” write Camacho and Lien, “is seen as inseparable from the broader struggle for self-determination and democracy in the Philippines.”
Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien: Offerings for Escalante continues at MoMA PS1 (22–25 Jackson Ave, Long Island City, Queens) through February 17. The show was organized by Ruba Katrib, PS1’s curator and director of Curatorial Affairs.
