Synopsis Perpetual Peace

Perpetual Peace was produced over a four-year period (2008-12) during which the artist, Michelle Dizon, traveled throughout the Philippines researching sites impacted by neocolonial and neoliberal policy. The subjects Dizon documented include the ruins of the former US military bases, the extraction of natural resources by multinational corporations, the development projects of US AID, the conflict zones of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, and the camps for those displaced by war and disaster.Her footage maps a Philippines that remains deeply affected by the legacies of multiple colonialisms and its continuity in international governing agencies of the globalized present.

Perpetual Peace asks how history might be retold through the perspective of the postcolonial diaspora. Working in the intervals between languages, histories, geographies, economies, and generations, Dizon navigates the link between subjectivity and temporality as well as the struggles within political history for an equitable future. Structured between immersive and perpetually looping projected images, tightly edited intervals, a composed soundtrack, a written script, and objects from daily life, the installation invites the viewer into a fragmented cinematic experience where they must piece together the elements of image, sound, text, and object.

CV - Michelle Dizon

• EDUCATION
• Ph.D., Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, December 2011 - Designated Emphasis in Film and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Dissertation Title: Vision in Ruins , Chair: Trinh T. Minh-ha
• MFA, Art, Interdisciplinary Studio Program, University of California, Los Angeles, 2008 - Thesis: Civil Society , Chair: Mary Kelly
• MA, Rhetoric, University of California, Berkeley, 2005
• BA, History of Art and English, High Honors, University of California, Berkeley 1999
• Minor in Creative Writing
• RECENT EXHIBITIONS
• Michelle Dizon, Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA, 2015
• Home F(r)ictions, Tabakfabrik, Linz, Austria, 2014
• Women, War, and Industry, San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA 2013
• Home Away, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA 2013
• The Documentation Show, ZN (Zinc) Gallery, Manila, Philippines, 2013
• Migrating Identities, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA, 2013
• In the Good Name of the Company, For Your Art, Los Angeles, CA, 2013
• inToAsia, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, New York, 2013
• Dear Curator, Curate Me, Selasar Sunaryo Art Center, Jakarta, Indonesia, 2013
• Picturesque, Vargas Museum, Manila, Philippines, 2013
• Perpetual Peace, 18th Street Gallery, Santa Monica, California, 2012