Block Out the Sun

Archives, museums, and collections subjectively frame historical narratives based on the objects they choose to collect and display. Photographs of the 1904 World’s Fair (sourced by Syjuco from local archives of St. Louis, Missouri) depict Filipino “natives” in a faux village created to commemorate colonial conquest in the Philippines. Over 1200 Filipinos were imported to the United States for the Fair, and were impelled to perform staged dances and rituals. The Philippine Exposition was a so-called “living exhibit,” but is more aptly described by Syjuco as a “human zoo.” Colonial hegemony and white supremacy were rationalized at the fair as “American progress” in the guise of ethnographic education and entertainment.

In Block Out the Sun, Syjuco uses her hands to redact the faces of the Filipino individuals that were put on display—a direct physical intervention that employs the artist’s body as a temporary shield and a marker of defiance. While the images are relevant as a pedagogical record, they serve as symbols of racist stereotypes and manifest Orientalist principles. Block out the Sun generates a counter-narrative by acknowledging the photographs remain in historical records, but thwarting the viewer’s ability to simply consume the faces of the people put on display.