White Lies (Filipino Boy on Graduation Day)

Patricia Perez Eustachio’s White Lies (Filipino Boy on Graduation Day), 2024 is part of her ongoing series featuring historical images reworked and reinterpreted via photography and digital loom. The tapestry is based on a found colonial-era image of a Filipino boy dressed as an American-Indian on the occasion of his graduation. Translated as a monumental tapestry, the work critiques the colonial gaze that marginalized not just one, but two, indigenous cultures. Playing with notions of tradition and contemporaneity, medium and materiality, art and craft, White Lies stands as a critical examination of the historical role educational institutions played in allowing cultural imperialism to persist.