Maria Patricia Abuel

Islands I reflects on my experiences of being sexualized, fetishized, and objectified. I consider the historical injustices Filipina bodies have experienced, especially in reference to Nerissa S. Balce’s “The Filipina’s Breast: Savagery, Docility, and the Erotics of the American Empire”.
Islands II is a maximalist iteration of Islands where the Filipina brown body is observed again as a vulnerable subject, but instead shown as a body accepting instead of resisting the postcolonial effects of religion, classism, and shadism. 

Exhibition History
Islands I (​Video performance, 16:26) – Shelley Peterson Student Art Exhibition, Art Museum, Toronto, 2018
Islands II (Video performance, 9:00) – Disputed Bodies, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, 2020