Video: Cartographies of Skin & Soil: Philippine Tattoos, Resistance & Colonial Maps
Date
Authors
Contributor
Department
Instructor
Depositor
Speaker
Researcher
Consultant
Interviewer
Interviewee
Narrator
Transcriber
Annotator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Volume
Number/Issue
Starting Page
Ending Page
Alternative Title
Abstract
Description
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Center for Philippine Studies and the Philippine Collection at Hamilton Library, the Cartographies of Skin and Soil: Tattoos, Resistance, and 1500s Philippine Colonial Maps exhibit was launched from Oct. 15 to 17 with a workshop series and traditional tattoo sessions.
The events at Hamilton Library drew more than 100 participants, who explored how Filipinos have long marked memory and resisted erasure through traditional tattoos, archival materials—including letters in classical Ilokano from the Philippine Revolution, underground papers from the Marcos Regime—and rare, original 1500s Philippine maps. These materials, preserved in the library’s Philippine Collection, highlight the ways cultural memory endures through both paper and skin.
Philippine Studies Librarian Elena Clariza began the workshops with a talk focusing on Philippine Colonial Maps from the 1500s–1700s, connecting fragile maps on paper with living maps of the body—tattoos as archives of ancestral knowledge and cultural memory. Read Clariza’s reflection on the event in the sidebar and view the map collection here.
Guest speakers and cultural tattooists Elle Festin, Zel Festin, Kristine Angeles and Ronna Ventigan from California’s Spiritual Journey Tattoo Shop, along with Tatak ng Apat na Alon (Mark of the Four Waves) members Cypress Bautista, Katrin Gabriel-Bloom, Margaret Nazareno, Paul Baretto, Dion Montero, Rob Daluson and James LaPierre, delivered a presentation on Filipino tattoo traditions and offered live hand poke and tapping tattoo demonstrations. Three of Hamilton Library’s student assistants—King James Mangoba, Sam Stone, and Sara Belarmino—participated in the tattoo workshop. To continue reading, please go to,
Clariza, E., & Garlach, S. (2025). Cartographies of Skin & Soil: Philippine Tattoos, Resistance & Colonial Maps. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa - Hamilton Library. https://manoa.hawaii.edu/library/news/cartographies-of-skin-and-soil/
Keywords
Citation
DOI
Extent
Format
Geographic Location
Time Period
Related To
Related To (URI)
Table of Contents
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/
Rights Holder
Catalog Record
Local Contexts
Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.