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Podcast: EMPIRE LINES
Episode: Giolo’s Lament, Pio Abad (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x Ashmolean Museum)
Description: Artist and archivist Pio Abad draws out lines between Oxford, the Americas, and the Philippines, making personal connections with historic collections, and reconstructing networks of trafficking, tattooing, and 20th century dictatorships.Pio Abad’s practice is deeply informed by global histories, with a particular focus on the Philippines. Here, he was born and raised in a family of activists, at a time of conflict and corruption under the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos (1965-1986). His detailed reconstructions of their collection - acquired under the pseudonyms of Jane Ryan and William Saunders - expose Western/Europe complicities in As...