Being in the world—or one’s own created world—is a feeling one senses when entering Jethro Patalinghug’s installation Manghihilot (2024). Pattern-changing sequins adorn the walls, while gel-colored lights shine a pinky patina across the video projections and expansive tentacular sculpture. Composed from used stockings from Patalinghug’s drag practice, alongside synthetic hair pieces, bejeweled surfaces, and a central corset, the artist creates a space characterized by a warm embrace. Given recent anti-drag and anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the United States and in Patalinghug’s native country of the Philippines, the embrace could double for “grooming.” And yet, grooming here becomes healing, affective, resistive, honorific, and bold. One of the projections shows Patalinghug’s friend, Pura Luka Vega performing the Filipino Evangelion Rock version of The Lord's Prayer in the local dialect of Cebuano as a drag queen in the Catholic country of the Philippines and faces incarceration. Projecting this resistance in the space, recalibrates the worldbuilding that is drag as a parallel process to becoming oneself in the world—shapeshifting and ever-present. -Laurel V. McLaughlin, PhD
Manghihilot
The antithesis to capitalism and white supremacy is queer indigenous community healing….
Gabriela Rising
This work is inspired by the queer identities that existed in the Philippines before the Spanish colonization started in the 1500’s. They were members of the women’s group of shamans who were spiritual and cultural leaders of different tribes and communities commonly called the Babaylan. It is also inspired by Jethro’s mother Virginia Patalinghug from whom they first witnessed the power of drag. She was a political activist during the Marcos dictatorship and when being hunted by the military she was forced to camouflage herself through make up and glamour. She was a member of the the very first militant women’s organization in the Philippines called Gabriela who name themselves from a Filipina warrior who fought against the Spaniards during the occupation.
Disco Balling Heads
What does nonbinary look like? These head pieces represent queer sub-cultures that subvert the binary ideology - The Imperial Council of San Francisco, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, The Leather Community, The Queer babaylans.
The Transperformer
Dismembered - Discarded - Bejeweled
Drag Everything Up!
Traditional masculine objects bejeweled and dragged up; wearable pieces transformed and bejeweled to resemble an armor .
