Laji No.97, 2023, mixed media installation, publication, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by Taipei Biennial 2023.
Pio Abad’s multilayered, research-based work concerns the personal and political entanglements of objects. He creates paintings, textiles, installations, and texts imbued with the historical traumas that have shaped our present.
Abad’s commission for the Taipei Biennial 2023 originated in a research trip to Lanyu, an island about 70 kilometers from Taiwan that he had dreamed of visiting since childhood. Abad’s family is Ivatan, an ethnic group native to the Batanes islands of the northern Philippines. The Ivatan are closely related to the Yami (Tao) people of Lanyu island. According to folk history, the Yami (Tao) people believe that their ancestors originated from Batanes, who sought refuge in Lanyu when Spanish colonizers arrived in the Philippines. Arriving in Lanyu from his base in London, Abad unexpectedly encountered a profound sense of intimate familiarity in an unknown place.
Abad’s work for the exhibition features a large floor sculpture of Ivatan poetry rendered in terracotta letters. Known as laji, such poems originated in an ancient oral tradition performed during pre-wedding rituals and wakes and bear a strong similarity to verses spoken in Lanyu. Alongside the installation are stacks of booklets of selected laji relating to seafaring, ancestry, and grief, as well as photographs of Abad’s visit to Lanyu island. The work reflects on the power and ephemerality of both text and soil. The text used for the sculptures and booklet are taken from the poetry collection translated to English by Ivatan academic Florentino Hornedo.
ivuvun mo yaken
du asked nu kuku mo
ta pachisuvusuvuay
ko du kanen mo
a mahutu as
pachidiludilupay ko
du inumen mo a danumbury me
under your fingernails,
that I may be eaten
along with every food you eat,
that I may be drunk
along with every cup
of water you drink.
