“An obscured "Ronald McDonald" stands behind the other figures, his face covered by the underside of the wooden seat. These fast-fooc moguls represent the American colonial authorities as cons ot excess and capitalist greed and are paraded around Baguo to survey the site of their 'summer capital. All three of the Igorots are depicted in a cartoonish manner with exaggerated features meant to present them as ‘savage’ or ‘primitive’ with oversized teeth and protrudingjaws. While Bose has rendered the characters as they are perceived by the colonial gaze, he endowed them with the luxuries of the postcolonial moment with running shoes and landline telephones. In the background, a collage of photographs of Baguio (after the site has been laid with concrete and packed with shoppers and their cars) draws attention to the camera as a colonial tool used to survey the land and peoples. Bose investigates these photographs in his work as politically charged with the colonial agenda.¹ These layered photographs foreground massive pine trees that reach towards the sky to remind the viewer of the altitude of these highlands.”  (p.4)

Full Text
1. Alice Guillermo, “Santiago Bose: His Works and Words,” in In Memory of a Talisman: An Exhibition of Works by Santiago Bose (National Commission on Culture and the Arts, 2004), 24.