Dr. Palis Showcases Countergeographies in Talk

By Marion Tinio

On September 19 2018, Asst. Prof. Joseph Palis delivered a talk on countergeography entitled, "Re-Spatialising Possible Worlds: Countermappings, Counternarratives and Dream Geographies in the Archipelago." The talk was organized by the University of the Philippines Diliman Discourse Studies Group (UPDDSG) and the Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy.

Photo by Raquel Borje

Asst. Prof. Palis featured various examples of countergeography, highlighting works of map artists Cian Dayrit, Mark Salvatus and Mideo Cruz. A countermapping exercise of the Junior Philippine Geographical Society - UP Diliman with farmers of Hacienda Luisita was also presented. Countergeography, argues Prof. Palis, “assists in destabilizing commonly-held cartographic imaginations that were shaped and reinforced by normalized state violence abetted by vestiges of colonial legacies in the Philippines.”

The works of Dayrit, Salvatus and Cruz are housed at the Department of Geography Resource Center, located in Pavilion 2 of the Palma Hall.  

To learn more about JPGS-UPD and other student-related matters, visit the Department Website.

Asst. Prof. Palis is faculty member of the Department of Geography, UPD and affiliate faculty member of the Center for International Studies, UPD.

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT

In 2010 Denis Wood argued: “…[A]mong counter-mapping strategies, none mounts the assault on the prerogatives of professional mapmakers that map art does, art … made as, with, or about maps (2010, 189; emphasis in original). This presentation discusses processual practices of countermapping in the Philippines: art maps which are reconfigurations and re-assemblies of ‘official’ maps and whose creation and authentication were legitimized by hegemonic state power to represent the modern nation-state. In the case of Filipino artist Cian Dayrit’s countermapped art works, these are interventions that interrogate the role of state power in standardizing and legitimizing a specific and particular brand of nationalism. Dayrit’s cartographically-informed art incorporates maps that destabilize the emblem of imperial and colonial power. Likewise, the art works of Mark Salvatus and Mideo Cruz embody the emotional and affective geographies of urban subalterns who navigate the labyrinth of institutionally and discursively violent terrains of Metro Manila. The maps provide an alternative representation of geoaffective dislocations and institutionalized marginalization due spatial elitism. I argue that these cartographic efforts and interventionist art maps assist in destabilizing commonly-held cartographic imaginations that were shaped and reinforced by normalized state violence abetted by vestiges of colonial legacies in the Philippines.