Mixed media installation

2023

Shown as part of ‘Small World’, the 13th Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Art Museum

Ivuvun mo yaken du asked nu kuku mo ta pachisuvusuvuay ko du kanen mo a mahutu as pachidiludilupay ko du inumen mo a danum.

Bury 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.

Pio Abad’s family is Ivatan, an ethnic group native to the Batanes and Babuyan islands of the northern Philippines. The Yami (Tao) people of Taiwan’s Lanyu island believe their ancestors originated from the Batanes before seeking refuge on Lanyu from Spanish colonizers. Arriving in Lanyu from his base in London, Abad unexpectedly encountered a profound sense of intimate familiarity in an unknown place.

Commissioned for the Taipei Biennial 2023, Abad’s large floor sculpture renders Ivatan poetry. The poems, known as laji, originate in an ancient oral tradition that bears a strong similarity to the language being 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 text used for the sculptures and booklet are taken from the poetry collection translated to English by Ivatan academic, Florentino Hornedo.