Mighty Ballistic
Single-Channel Video + Performance + Sculpture Bullet Armour Dress
Performance at Quiapo, Manila
In 2006, my father was shot dead with 4 bullets by a hoodlum gang, headed by an ex-military intelligence man. His body was dumped on the side of a provincial road. Unconsciously I was preoccupied with the image of the last moments of him falling to his death. I explore the idea of being a prey, the target of violence. My case of personal trauma exists all over the world; the excessive death toll continues today with continuous unsolved killings and abductions for all sorts of personal and political reasons. The prevailing actuality is that human life is cheap in the quest for wealth and power. Walking the streets of the city, slowly like in a ritual of a spirit re-visiting a place, the bullet armour dress allowed me to view the world like a viewer instead of the one being viewed.
In a society where women are still viewed as objects, I am used to being self-conscious when walking the streets, however, in Mighty Ballistic I moved from the spectacle to the spectator.