Angel Velasco Shaw (b. 1963 in Los Angeles, CA; lives between New York, NY, and Manila) is a multimedia artist, experimental filmmaker, cultural organizer, curator, and educator. In 2014, she curated Markets of Resistance, a collaborative exhibition across three market stalls of the Baguio Public Market, with contemporary and indigenous artists and artisans from Baguio City. Participants bartered their artworks for goods found at the market, including prepaid phone cards, car radio parts, supplies, and foodstuffs. After the Philippine-American War (1899–1902), the United States developed Baguio City into a “Summer Capital” for Americans. The market that was later built there drew populations from all over the Philippines, including indigenous Ibaloi whose land had been seized for the city’s construction. It remains a popular destination for tourists today.
For the artist, traditional markets encapsulate the convergence of colonial legacies that, for some, offers exoticizing forms of consumption and, for others, resistant ways of preserving tradition. As an extension of the project, Velasco Shaw produced an 18-piece postcard set that takes up these tensions. The series is titled Policy of Attraction (2014), after US President William Taft’s eponymous pacification campaign, which sought to win over the Filipino population through the construction of schools, lowered trade barriers, and other incentives following the country’s annexation. For the 58th Carnegie International, Velasco Shaw presents the original postcard set in a pouch made by indigenous artisans using traditional Filipino textiles alongside documentary video of the project.
