DEC13_SUPERDUPERFINAL

The other part of the proposition is from the field of anthropology
by way of Jean-Paul Dumont’s Visayan Vignettes: Ethnographic
Traces of an Island. Dumont explicates the nuances of life in
Siquijor, and in doing so probes the very language of description.
According to Dumont: “I propose a plurality of images – vignettes
– that superimpose themselves upon each other to create an out-offocus
ensemble, since cultural contours are never sharp and stories
never straight.” The use of vignettes is interesting, because the word
is simultaneously about architecture and image: “an ornament
of leaves and tendrils” in buildings and a “portrait showing only
head and shoulders with background gradually shaded off;
character sketch.” I am drawn to this elaboration of form as well
as its sheerness, or mereness. To this rumination, he tosses over the
Visayan word hulagway, which is generally a picture (delineation,
imagination). It is composed from hulad, which means to depict
and to translate; and dagway, which pertains to face and appearance
as well as to subjunctive moments as signaled by the adverbs perhaps
or probably.
photos by Joar Songcuya
66