Faces places: Countermapping art, subalternities and counterpublics

Abstract

This article is a critical reflection on our forays in the curatorial practice and exposition in March 2018 for a map art exhibit called Faces Places: Mapping Embodiments held at the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman. The exhibit was an exposition of different and alternative forms of mapping through the works of three Filipino artists: Mideo Cruz, Cian Dayrit and Mark Salvatus. We analysed their interventions in making visible the progressive geographies inherent in the everyday lifeworlds of Filipinos. Drawing from Nancy Fraser’s subaltern counterpublics, we argue that their artistic outputs are forms of counter-mapping vignettes that allow the possibility to illuminate the voices and habitus of the sifted and the excluded as new cartographical interventions intended for critical reflection and pedagogy. The art maps and countermaps of the artists evoked different responses that broadened and expanded understanding beyond what maps are, which allowed us to further interrogate the power structures that define world order through time. The production of new knowledges was derived not only from analysing the textual and symbolic aspects of the artistic countermaps but also with the processual aspect of art-making as emancipatory politics.