W O V E N T H R E A D S

ANNE ZAHALKA

in association with Community Aid Abroad

P ICTUR IN G TR I BAL WOME N IN MINDAN AO

W O V E N T H R E A D SPICTURING TRIBAL WOMEN

IN MINDANAO

A N N E Z A H A L K A

in association with Community Aid Abroad

CONTENTS

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Alison Cleary

Revisiting the site: Colonialism and the ethnographic portrait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Diane Losche

Woven tales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Ian Collie

List of works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Artist’s note . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Anne Zahalka

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

INTRODUCTION

International development organisations, such as Community Aid Abroad, are not generally associated with artists of the genre of Anne Zahalka . Photographic images usually associated with development tend to be stark, to be black and white, and to be serious . There is a notion that to generate images in the way that Anne does is to play with reality—to tamper with truth . This project is very much about challenging some of those long held assumptions about how to present images of the developing world, and in inviting Anne to be part of this, I was hoping to be able to make connections between the lives of tribal women in the Philippines (and all over the world) and the audience here in Australia .

When I was first presented with the challenge of coordinating a photographic exhibition featuring images from the Philippines I felt less than inspired by the prospect . Certainly not because of the subject—as the Philippines is a country full of fabulous images, and the work that Community Aid Abroad is doing there with tribal communities would provide many opportunities to capture on film the spirit and life of the country . The challenge was more how to present those images differently, how to make the link between those communities and communities here in Australia .

It was then that I thought of some of the work that Anne had done—Open House,1995 and Bondi: Playground of the Pacific,1989, in which she presents images of Australian people and communities . I liked the idea of trying to do something similar in the Philippines, and spoke to Anne about the project . Her enthusiasm for the idea, and my desire to come up with an exhibition that presented a different perspective on indigenous women convinced me to commission Anne to do the work .

Funding for this project came from a series of grants that Community Aid Abroad received from AusAID—the Australian Government’s overseas aid agency . The funding was to support development education initiatives in Australia aimed at educating an Australian audience about issues confronting lumads (tribal people) in the Philippines . As well as this exhibition, Community Aid Abroad has produced a video, a number of publications, and a poster, all highlighting the culture and life of lumads .

Community Aid Abroad has been working in the Philippines, and with tribal Filipinos, for many years . Some of the women that feature in this exhibition are part of a T’boli community in southern Mindanao that Community Aid Abroad (and before that, Freedom from Hunger) has

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been working with since the early 1990s . As with many of our projects in the Philippines the aim is to raise the health and economic and social status of the women in the community, so that they begin to approach equality with men . Through project activities such as health education, the provision of water supply systems, adult literacy programs, income generation programs and ecological farming, the project aims to strengthen and support traditional culture and community structures, to ensure that those communities continue to not only survive, but to flourish .

To present images of this work and these communities to people here in Australia, in a way that brings about greater understanding, and challenges stereotyped ideas about developing countries, is an important component of our work . To be able to show people in Australia, who would otherwise not have access to tribal Filipino women, some images of those women’s’ lives, helps to bridge the gap between us and them . In turn, this then encourages a greater understanding of, and action on, the links between poverty and injustice in the developing world, and the lifestyles and policies of the developed world .

Alison Cleary

Alison Cleary is National Advocacy Coordinator for Community Aid Abroad, and project managed the Woven Threads exhibition and catalogue.

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Lisa Timbang with son Emilio

After a person dies the soul embarks on a long journey from the earth to the other world. At certain points on this long journey the soul can lose its sense of sight if it looked back to its place of origin. from ‘The Journey of the Soul’ by Datu Mangadta Sugkawan1

Years ago I spent a month visiting a group of Panamanian Indians known as the Cuna . I remember that one woman, in particular, was very suspicious of photographs . She regarded the process of photography, she said, as a kind of soul theft . For many years contemporary anthropologists would seem to have agreed with this woman and photography has, until recently, been a rather embarrassing, and banished medium . It seemed a type of primordial crime, an important tool in the formation of the discipline of anthropology in the nineteenth century and at the same time associated with colonial agendas, the creation of subject peoples and racial stereotypes . Ethnographic documentation via the photograph went along with a particular consciousness and ideology—the belief that the peoples being documented were dying peoples, cultures destined to become extinct because of the impact of colonialism . But the doom sayers it seems were wrong and

any number of cultures have risen from the ashes of colonialism . Some populations are rising after generations of decline . Most interestingly any number of societies have shown enormous resilience in adapting technological, philosophical, religious and other changes to traditional ways .

Recently there has been renewed interest in looking once again at the thousands upon thousands of photographic images produced during the long arduous history of photography’s association with colonised and subject peoples .2 As Nicholas Thomas has noted: As socially and culturally salient entities, objects change in defiance of their material stability. The category to which a thing belongs, the emotion and judgement it prompts, and the narrative it recalls, are all historically refigured...3 In a turn of the wheel of history anthropologists as well as historians, artists and curators have pulled out the old, dusty images for reconsideration

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REVISITING THE SITE: Colonialism and the Ethnographic Portrait

T’boli woman Lemlahak

and recontextualization . Those with this recently reawakened interest have differing agendas . Some are turning to the photographs for evidence and information about lost or forgotten techniques, customs and practices . Others seek to analyse the cultures which took the pictures . Some try to read the evidence as much for what is missing as for what is visible . Thus this recently reawakened interest is immediately multiple and fragmented in it’s own agendas . This renewed focus raises an interesting set of questions . Should we revisit the site of colonial technique and image making? If we choose to return to this site how do we revisit it? What tools can we bring with us? This is the difficult but interesting territory being explored and negotiated by an unusual coupling of an art photographer and an aid organisation—a joint project of photographing tribal women in the Philippines by photographer Anne Zahalka and the international aid organisation Community Aid Abroad .

How did this, at first sight, quirky marriage—Anne Zahalka is most well known as a photographer whose work references acutely the history of western painting and representation . Community Aid Abroad is an international development aid organisation—come to be? In the first instance the answer is simple . Alison Cleary from Community Aid Abroad invited Anne to document a group of women from the T’boli and Manobo tribal peoples on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines . The women had been involved in Community Aid Abroad sponsored projects for several

years and the organisation felt it was time to document the women’s lives in order to raise awareness about the contemporary situation of T’boli and Manobo women . Alison Cleary herself had been a subject of Anne’s portrait series Open House and felt that this photographer’s gift for intimate ethnography would be ideally suited for portraits of the women in their surroundings . This move, of making intimate portraits, will, Alison Cleary hopes, ‘break down the us/them consciousness’ which is often brought to aid and development issues . While on the face of it the wedding of Anne Zahalka and Community Aid Abroad is straightforward at the same time that union is not so obvious as it would seem and leads us on a long journey along the complex byways of the entwined histories of photography and colonialism, documentation and art .

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View from community hall, Lemlahak

ENTER THE SUBJECT

The Philippines has had a long and complex colonial history as well as an equally distinguished and perhaps not so well known history of subversion, survival and struggle against colonialism . While this is not the place to enter this complex history some facts of Philippines history are relevant here . During the long Spanish and then US colonisation of the Philippines indigenous peoples have gradually lost their land . The Spanish never successfully colonised the island of Mindanao, in part because of indigenous resistance . The Philippines came under US colonial rule from 1893 and since then the island of Mindanao has become one of the frontiers of resource exploitation and of settlement by landless people from neighbouring islands . Land Acts in the early twentieth century declared the lands of indigenous people such as the T’boli and Manobo as public land .4 Thus peoples such as the T’boli and the Manobo have struggled throughout this century against the loss of ancestral land . They are people in the centre of a particular 20th century history which has seen a continuous struggle between expanding capitalism and indigenous land . Peoples such as the T’boli and the Manobo have seen it all in a short hundred years . Like Aboriginal people in Australia they have witnessed on their own lands massive deforestation, industrial pastoralism, with the attendant predictable results of disease, flood, locusts, raids, burning, murder, flight . Now the Philippines Central

Government has entered the fray with well intentioned but technocratic and debt laden solutions to these problems . Among the Manobo the ranches are gone and ancestral land claims are possible but the Arakan Valley, the ancestral domain of the Manobo, has been targeted as a cite for reforestation, eco—tourism and a possible dam .5 Not surprisingly in the course of this lamentable history much of T’boli and Manobo energy has gone into sheer survival and resistance to this encroachment . In the midst of this bureaucratic insanity organisations such as Community Aid Abroad and the Kaliwat Theatre Collective attempt to work with the people to create manageable projects for economic survival and cultural revival .

Photography and ethnography have not been irrelevant to this historic struggle . In fact both techniques of representation have often denied the very existence of that struggle . As the battle has raged (a fierce David and Goliath battle which has seen small populations struggle against the might of the US and Philippines governments as well as cowboys, mining companies and frontier settlers from other parts of the Philippines) photography has created static, timeless visions of women in full traditional regalia, staring, it would seem passively, at the camera—icons of the tribal woman . Ethnography has followed photography in creating this decorous, aestheticized image . Hyndman and Duhaylungsod, who have done research among the T’boli, suggest that the image of this culture in

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the Philippines: has centred on the delicately designed t’balak cloth, colourful beads, embroidered blouses and brass jewellery... This popular imagery romanticises and fossilises T’boli culture, while misrepresenting the people as little more than tourist attraction ‘art’.”6 While it may be true that photographic and ethnographic study has, in the case of the T’boli, reified historical struggle into decorative finish nevertheless photographic and ethnographic documentation is often the only record that remains of history and tradition and it may record techniques and practices that tribal peoples are justifiably proud of . This photographic and ethnographic history is thus a double edged sword, valuable on the one hand as historical record, on the other a reminder of everything that has been lost in that history .

ENTER THE PHOTOGRAPHER

Anne Zahalka enters this terrain via her commission from Community Aid Abroad . The question becomes, for the photographer of T’boli and Manobo women involved in Community Aid Abroad’s development projects, how to create portraits in the face of, and perhaps in some ways acknowledging the value of photographic and ethnographic representation while not repeating it’s trivialisation and objectification of it’s subject . This is not an easy task for the portrait photographer . Photography itself drags in it’s wake a history as a colonised technique subjected to and judged by the history of painting which has so dominated western

representation . Portrait photography itself has, in the

shadow of painting, it’s own complex set of agendas and

possibilities . The photographic portrait is at once the site of

intimacy and individuality and at the same time the site of

the power of the gaze, that all powerful eye which has the

ability to subject it’s individual subjects to a set of formal

considerations which will render them into objects . So here

in the history of photography we have another double

edged history which encodes the possibility of intimate

knowledge or conversely of distanced objectification . It is

perhaps because of it’s own history that portrait photography

is able to provide the suture which can join aesthetic form

to the idea of the documentary witness to historical struggle .

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Lorita Sailon Bagtok

Anne Zahalka’s method in this project is to provide intimate and documentary portraits of a group of women while at the same time revealing the potential that photographic technique has to manipulate and to objectify it’s subject matter so that the viewer can see for themselves the manipulation of the image by the photographer . All the images were taken by Anne in open air studios set up during a visit to the T’boli and Manobo areas . The resulting portraits have had a number of fates . They have been sent back to the subjects and have also been used in Community Aid Abroad publications . For exhibition the photographer has computer manipulated the images and the viewer is presented with three versions of the same original photograph . One version is sepia toned, a reference to the history of ethnographic photography, another version is colour enhanced . This image, where the sky is bluer, the fields greener than they could ever possibly be, creates a vision of a tribal paradise . Looking at this version one realises with a jolt that one is looking at a postcard—like image, of the kind that are now found throughout the world, a reminder that the history of objectification, and colonisation, is far from over . The third photo in the triptych is a naturalistic image relatively untouched by computer . This version also contains text indicating the activities and achievements of the individual in the portrait . In some ways these panels of photo/text are the lynch pin of the triptych since they allow the viewer to become aware of the objectifications and manipulations of the other

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Manobo woman, Mindanao

Tribal woman (postcard)

versions . Here we see women who are indeed dressed in traditional finery but who are members of land claim organisations, pursuing literacy and numeracy classes, engaged in businesses, active in local government as well as wives, mothers, and agricultural producers, weavers and wearers of beautiful fabrics and spectacular jewellery .

To return to a question posed earlier in this essay— can we revisit the site of colonial images? Anne Zahalka’s triptychs suggest that we can as long as we bring with us the knowledge that our images are constructed and can, in turn, be deconstructed . In this way we become aware that the aesthetic and the functional, beauty and power, image and action, are not mutually exclusive arenas but can be in dialogue with one another . Certain Manobo beliefs intuit this possibility of harmony in the story of the journey of the soul to the domain of Maibuyan, the spirit and caretaker of the afterlife . Datu Mangadta Sugkawan, a shaman and leader, pictures this domain as a wondrous place, a golden place, a place where ‘the souls only talk about good and sensible things . If one starts to talk, everybody else listens .’7 With this beautiful vision of a harmonic dialogue of human voices I think we must let Datu Mangadta Sugkawan have the last word .

Diane Losche 1997

Diane Losche is an anthropologist and art writer. She teaches Art Theory at the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.

FOOTNOTES

1. Kaliwat Theatre Collective.1996. Arakan: Where Rivers Speak of the Manobo’s Living Dreams. Kaliwat Theatre Collective. Mindanao, Philippines: p.53.

2. Edwards, Elizabeth, ed.1992. Anthropology & Photography 1860–1920. Yale University Press. New Haven and London.; Blanton, Casey, editor.1995

Picturing Paradise: Colonial Photography of Samoa, 1875–1925.

Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach Community College. Daytona Beach, Florida.

3. Thomas, N. 1991. Entangled Objects: Exchange Material Culture and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press:p.125.

4. Hyndman, David and Duhaylungsod, Levita.1995 “Mining and Ancestral Land in the Southern Philippines’ in Conference Proceedings: Mining and Mineral Resource Policy Issues in the Asia Pacific: Prospects for the 21st Century. eds. Denoon,D., Ballard,C., Banks, G. and Hancock,P. Australian National University. Canberra.:p.145; Kaliwat Theatre Collective.1996. Arakan: Where Rivers Speak of the Manobo’s Living Dreams. Kaliwat Theatre Collective, Mindanao, Philippines: p.202.

5. Kaliwat Theatre Collective. op cit. pp.192–194, 125–152.

6. Hyndman & Duhaylungsod.1996. ‘Reclaiming T’boli Land’ in Resources, Nations and Indigenous People: Case Studies from Australasia, Melanesia and Southeast Asia, eds. Howitt,R., Connell, J. and Hirsch, P. Oxford University Press. Oxford: p.104.

7. Kaliwat Theatre Collective, op. cit.:p.55

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SINGKIL A royal Muslim dance performed with quick steps through four crisscrossed bamboo poles to the rhythm of brass songs.PhilippinesCourtesy of Barangay Folk Dance Troupe

TINIKLING A native dance that imitates the playfulness of the “tinikling”, a longlegged bird which hops from the one bamboo pole to another.Philippines Courtesy of Barangay Folk Dance Troupe

Beautiful Philippines—as best exhibited through colourful dance, costume and setting.In the background are sailboats known as VINTAS.Philippines

BENGUET Festival DanceCourtesy of Barangay Folk Dance Troupe Philippines

SAKUTING A folk dance of the Ilocanos usually performed during Christmas. Groups of boys and girls go to perform from house to house receiving many gifts in return. Note the two sticks used to produce the rhythmic sound. Courtesy of Barangay Folk Dance Troupe, Philippine Normal College

BANGA—literally means claypot, used as water or food containers. These claypots are balanced on the heads of Igorot women as they wind up and down the mountain trail.

Postcards from the Philippines, with original captions

10Lisa Timbang, Lemlahak

Amada Tudal, Telubek

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12Postcards

13T’boli sowing seeds (postcard)

14T’boli woman, Lake Sebu

15Alinda An’an, Bagtok

16Manobo tribal women

17Pilsar Ongan & Tagaling Akil, Arakan Valley

18Goy Unga, Telubek

19Adilita Malilong, Bagtok

WOVEN TALES

Woven Threads is the title of the exhibition but implicit to the photographs are a tapestry of woven tales . Tales of the lumad, the indigenous peoples of the Philippines . Their stories were fascinating because they dealt with a timeless theme: the conflict between the traditional and the modern world . In this case you had two tribal communities, the T’boli and the Manobo, having to confront the social, economic and cultural incursions of the outside world . Their tales tell of both survival and resistance and , sadly, suffering and death . Inextricably linked to these stories is the one constant: the loss of their land . The parallel with our own indigenous peoples is all too obvious .

In the sixties and the seventies there was a massive influx of migrant settlers from the north . The lowlanders or visaya , referring to the group of islands north of Mindanao, purchased the lumad land for the cost of a sack of rice or a can of sardines, or quite simply occupied it and then registered it under the governments land registration scheme . This scheme , based on the Torrens title system of registration, did not recognise the lumad concept of communal property . Because of the high rate of illiteracy many lumad communities were easily lured into thumb printing a deed of land transfer .

The land itself has been plundered by mining, fishing and logging interests . The landscape of the two lumad communities we visited is quite spectacular in places . Some photos were predictably postcard: a caribou ploughing a verdant paddy fields at the foot of mist—covered mountains . Closer inspection, however, would reveal a landscape pockmarked with ravines from severe soil erosion or totally denuded of forest cover . The small Manobo village of Bagtok was the site of local protests in 1993 against extensive logging of Mount Sinaka . An unlikely coalition of Manobo, migrant settlers and, even more surprisingly the local military, were successful in pressuring the government to cancel the logging companies licence . Lake Sebu, a majestic lake in a dormant volcanic plug, is said to be totally fished out from driftnet practices and an oversupply of commercial feed .

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Manobo girl with mortar and pestle

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Only a few months before our visit a local court dismissed proceedings for negligence against a gold mining company . The company had been excavating for gold at Lake Maughan, the eastern side of Lake Sebu . Explosives burst the lake’s crater creating a huge flood of the Allah river completely wiping out a whole village and killing more than 100 people . One of the principals of the mining company was a vice—mayor of a local town . Legal proceedings were eventually dismissed due to lack of evidence . Locals say that standover tactics and bribes paid out to any potential witnesses ensured a prompt ending to proceedings .

Despite the end of Marcos cronyism, corruption at least on a local council level is still rife . If there is a dispute between a lumad and a visaya the police and the military will usually side with the latter who are often in a better economic position to pay for justice . The legal system and political governance of the settlers is being adopted by younger lumad generations . Traditionally disputes are settled by the datu village elder and the aggrieved party must be paid a tamok whether that be a horse, some land, gongs or increasingly cash . Today the datu’s power is greatly diminished , often because lumad families are so poor they can barely afford to eat twice a day (our meal at Bagtok included fish which was a luxury item for them) let alone raise a meaningful tamok . Parties to a dispute now go forum shopping for the administration of justice—the recourse to police intervention appears more meaningful .

Mayet Ansabo, a member of MALUPA, a support organisation for the various Manobo tribes in the Arakan Valley, laments that the lumud is becoming too easily influenced by the settlers . She said the traditional value of palusong where lumuds are expected to help one another out for free rarely applies today . Communities are becoming fragmented and over dependent on the visaya for their livelihood . The village of Bagtok, can only be accessed by foot or motorbike . Due to soil depletion from past slash and burn farming techniques and deforestation from logging, crop yields are poor . It is too far to the nearest market to go on a regular basis particularly as they don’t have mechanised transport . They must sell their agricultural products, basically corn, maize and root crops, to a middleman who pays less than half of what he can get at the market .

View near Bagtok

There is also a battle for the mind of the lumad . Traditional beliefs are being replaced with a full panoply of religious and secular articles of faith . Again one can go forum shopping from the established churches—Catholic, Baptist, etc—to the Islamic Moro liberation front (which entered into a peace treaty with the government last year after 25 years of secessionist struggle) to the communism of the New Peoples Army . The Catholic missions have played an integral role in promoting lumad self—determination and lobbying for ancestral land claims to preserve their communities and culture . The breakaway Muslim rebels are becoming increasingly popular with disenfranchised lumad males with their brand of gun—toting machismo and practice of polygamy, a traditional lumad custom the Christian churches have attempted to change . And yet the biggest threat is the revivalist movement with its combination of apocalyptic visions and congregational rock and roll . During our overnight stay at Arukan Valley we were forced to endure an excruciating mix of techno and karaoke courtesy of the nearby Go to Heaven Philippines crusade . “The lumads love it” sighs Father Fausto from the local mission, “no sermonising and lots of singing” .

It is not surprising that revivalist movements are popular in the Philippines . With its Spanish and American colonial roots this country revels in melodrama and superstition . It is the Latin America of Asia . There are all the key elements: Catholicism, indigenous tribes, the military,

magic, poverty, American cultural imperialism, official corruption, greedy landowners, communism and tragedy . And yet despite the fascinating social and cultural dynamics that exist it is surprising how little we know about this country . There is the occasional news: the Marcoses, People Power, faith healers, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo, hoaxes like the first pregnant man or the controversy surrounding the lost Tasaday tribe . But generally it doesn’t command the same attention in the Australian media as other Asian countries like Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong etc . It is a country of many islands, tribes and languages—and, as I found, many stories .

Ian Collie

Ian Collie accompanied Anne Zahalka on the trip to Mindanao. He is currently the Executive Officer of the Australian Screen Directors Association.

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Montage of valley near Bagtok

LIST OF WORKS

Lisa Timbang with son Emilio Lemlahak 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2Type C print 20cm x 25cm

T’boli woman Lemlahak 1997 . . . . . . . 3Iris digital print25cm x 35cm

View from communal hall Lemlahak 1996 4Type C print20cm x 25cm

Lorita Sailon Bagtok 1997 . . . . . . . . . . 6Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Manobo woman Mindanao 1997 . . . . . 7Iris digital print25cm x 35cm

Tribal woman (postcard) 1997 . . . . . . . 8Fujix digital print10 .3cm x14 .9cm

Postcards from the Philippines . . . . . . . . . 9Offset prints on card10cm x 14 .5cm

Lisa Timbang Lemlahak 1997 . . . . . . . 10Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Amada Tudal Telubek 1997 . . . . . . . . . 11Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Postcards 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Fujix digital prints10 .3cm x 14 .9cm each

T’boli sowing seeds 1997 . . . . . . . . . 13Fujix digital print10 .3cm x 14 .9cm

T’boli woman Lake Sebu 1997 . . . . . . 14 Iris digital print25cm x 35cm

Alinda An’nan Bagtok 1997 . . . . . . . . 15Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Manobo tribal women Arakan Valley 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Iris digital print25cm x 35cm

Pilsar Ongan and Tagaling Akil Bagtok 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Goy Unga Telabek 1997 . . . . . . . . . . . 18Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Adilita Malilong Bagtok 1997 . . . . . . . 19Ilfochrome print50cm x 60cm

Manobo girl with mortar and pestle 1997 20Iris digital print 25cm x 35cm

View near Bagtok 1996 . . . . . . . . . . . 21Type C print 20cm x 25cm

Montage of valley near Bagtok . . . . 23Type C prints25cm x 20cm each

Field shot viewing Polaroid by Ian Collie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Front cover: Detail from Elma Segundo Lemlahak 1997

Back cover: Greetings from Lemlahak, Mindanao (postcard) 1997

Inside covers: T’boli weaving called a t’nalak made from raw abaca fibre, woven through a loom .

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ARTIST’S NOTE

When this project was initially proposed I naively accepted the commission with little thought as to the problems it might present . I understood there would be a number of technical details to consider—the terrain, the weather, the distances to isolated locations, and the shortness of time at each destination, but these were obstacles many before me had overcome with far less sophisticated equipment and means of travel . It seemed like an opportunity to work differently from ways I was familiar with and offered access to people and locations I would not normally have had contact with .

In researching the subject of tribal communities I became acutely aware of the difficulties (theoretical rather than physical) in portraying them . Representations of indigenous peoples in the past has been a history of objectification which has come under considerable scrutiny over the last decade . Although recently there has been a reappraisal of this material in terms of its recording of indigenous societies and an acknowledgment of its value as documentation, opinion is divided . Also questioned is the more recent and manipulative tradition of photojournalism which has romanticised these groups packaging them into slick

journals and glossy coffee table books . As well as commodifying culture in this way the tourist industry has been responsible for its own form of stereotyping, promoting exotic lands through idealised views and colourfully dressed people . With all this before me how could I photograph tribal women without further contributing to this problematic production of indigenous representations?

As an artist working primarily with photography I have always been interested in the historical and contemporary images of people and place and the modes used to address them . Through an investigation of these via painting and photographic traditions I have sought to question their influence and value . In adopting a similar approach to my picturing of tribal women in Mindanao I wanted to reference the history of colonial

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Field shot

and ethnographic photography with its inherent stereotyping of race but also recognise its value in documenting its subjects . The locating of place through the juxtaposition of figure and landscape in Woven Threads is important in creating a backdrop for the women, reminiscent of 19th century studio portraiture, and a way of suggesting their strong association to the land . The addition of texts within the other images offers further information about their position and place within the community which the photograph alone is unable to provide . They have a simplicity and directness that mimics old Social Studies texts about indigenous folk . The photographs have been manipulated digitally to create these separate genres as well as remove their documentary quality . By presenting differing versions within the one body of work I see it as a way of addressing these visual histories, speaking through them to offer some alternative points of view .

It has been an extremely challenging exhibition to work on could not have taken place without the co-operation of the T’boli and Manobo communities and I would like to thank them all for their enthusiasm and generosity in taking time away from work to participate in this photographic project . The women particularly who consented to be photographed, who “dressed up” for the occasion (no requests made) and performed so readily deserve special thanks . Their warmth, humour and strength made my job very rewarding and special .

Other important people to mention are Jun Jabla the Philippines Field Officer for Community Aid Abroad who organised and coordinated our trip and provided valuable information about the groups we visited . Sister Cecilia Lorayes from the Santa Cruz Mission looked after us and provided us with a thoughtful and enthusiastic assistant, Melchi Vyasan from the Tribal Women’s Health and Development Project . Joel Motril from Oxfam Development projects known fondly as “The Waterman” acted in many capacities from fearless driver to art director . Cynthia (Gaga) Caingles acted as translator and accompanied us for the few days we spent with the Manobo community at Bagtok, Arakan Valley . My husband Ian Collie performed a number of roles from camera assistant/lackey to researcher and journalist and I am grateful for his help and company . The information and material he gathered has been crucial to the development of this work .

Finally my thanks go to Alison Cleary and Community Aid Abroad who had the confidence and vision to invite an art photographer, with no experience of working with such communities, the opportunity of meeting and representing them . It has been one of the most difficult but rewarding exhibitions to put together and I hope its reception will be met with equal interest and support .

Anne Zahalka

Anne Zahalka works primarily with photomedia. She is represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery in Melbourne and Roslyn Oxley Gallery in Sydney.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Community Aid Abroad works with communities to build a fairer world .

It supports innovative and imaginative development projects in Aboriginal Australia and overseas and acts to mobilise the Australian community and influence the Australian Government . Community Aid Abroad takes effective action to eliminate poverty and achieve social justice and environmental sustainability by addressing the underlying causes of inequality and powerlessness .

Community Aid Abroad is an Australian, independent, not for profit organisation with a support base of over 600,000 people and 160 community–based groups . We work to eliminate poverty and achieve social justice .

Funding for this project has come from AusAID, the Australian Government’s overseas aid agency, and administration of the project has been by Community Aid Abroad’s Public Policy and Education Section .

Community Aid Abroad would like to thank the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) for support with this project .

First published 1997 by:Community Aid Abroad

156 George StFitzroy Victoria 3065

Australiaph: 03 9289 9444fx: 03 9419 5895

email: enquire @caa .org .auinternet: http://www .caa .org .au/

ACN 055 208 636

The views expressed in this publication are the views of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Publishers .

Copyright 1997This work is copyright . Apart from any fair dealings for the purposes of private study,

research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this publication may be reproduced by any process without written permission . Inquiries

should be made to the publisher .

ISBN 1 875 870 377

Catalogue design & production by Barbara Martusewicz23 Buttenshaw Drive Coledale NSW 2515

Printed by Quality Images23 Leeds Street Rhodes NSW 2138

Our sincere apologies for any names that have been wrongly ascribed. Care has been taken however it was not possible to record every individual involved in the project.