Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien are a Filipinx and Taiwanese American artist duo based in Berlin and New York. Their collaborative practice centres on histories of global trade, colonialism, exploitative labour, plantation ecologies and alternative imaginaries of the land.
In this talk, the artists will speak about their new body of work Offerings for Escalante (2024) and their experimental documentary film Langit Lupa (Heaven and Earth), the culmination of several years of fieldwork in the plantation island of Negros in the Philippines, where Camacho’s mother is from. The documentary film weaves personal testimonials from survivors of the violent massacre in the town of Escalante in 1985 with footage from community art activities with local children during their research visits. Against the backdrop of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s current regime and its attempts to suppress those testifying to structural violence in the Philippines, Langit Lupa explores how the Escalante Massacre endures as both a rupture and inflection point in Negros’ collective memory, whilst also portraying the revolutionary culture that subsists among the people. The multi-medial work in Offerings for Escalante further give voice to the island’s silenced histories while shedding light on ongoing issues of food sovereignty, land justice and environmental destruction.
The lecture will dive into the process of developing the piece in Negros and feature excerpts of the film.
This is the third event in the 2024 Asymmetry Distinguished Lecture Series, ‘Critical Habitats’, convened by Dr Wenny Teo, Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Asian Art at The Courtauld, and Michèle Ruo Yi Landolt, Director at Asymmetry Art Foundation.
Enzo Camacho (*1985, Philippines) and Ami Lien (*1987, USA) are an artist duo based between New York and Berlin. They have had solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Freiburg (2018); and Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2018). Their work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2022); the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane (2021); the 5th New Museum Triennial, New York (2021); the 39th EVA International, Limerick (2021); Manifesta 13, Marseille (2020); the Drawing Center, New York (2020); the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei (2019); the Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London (2019); the NTU Center for Contemporary Art, Singapore (2018); UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2017); Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok (2017); and Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila (2009). In 2023, they were the recipients of the Gold Art Prize, and they are currently Senior Fellows at the Lunder Institute of American Art at Colby College.
