Honoring those who have given their life for freedom against tyranny, now embraced by the land they stood their ground to defend, remembered by the people they swore to protect.
This 2022, we remember the 50th year of the declaration of proclamation 1081 by then president Ferdinand E. Marcos placing the entire Philippines under Martial Law. The event was a turning point in our nation’s painful histories. The institutionalizing of authoritarian rule was the culminating response of the dictatorship against mounting dissent such as the First Quarter Storm on a national level, and the Diliman Commune within the UP community.
“Remains To Be Seen” caps a trilogy of art installation commemorating the 1970 First Quarter Storm with “Nagbabadyang Unos” and the 1971 Diliman Commune with “Barikada”. This year’s installation focusing on the declaration of Martial Law is visually represented by the installation of fifty (50) actual body bags along the Oblation Plaza and the University Avenue, filled with earth (garden soil) and planted with flowering plants like the “Touch Me Not” (Makahiya), “Forget Me Not,” and the Miracle Plant (Katakataka).
The installation not only reminds us the lost of human lives after proclamation 1081, but also five decades of state sponsored killings, summary executions, and forced disappearances. We remember those who were not given a proper burial or their burial site unknown. Families who have not been afforded closure in finding loved one taken by state forces.
The pocket garden becomes de facto grave of those who were sacrificed in the name of freedom and justice, of social equality, and dissent against authoritarian rule.
See more events of ML@50: Tugon at Tindig ng Sining: bit.ly/ML50UPDiliman
