Award-winning documentary photographer Rick Rocamora, whose stark, striking images have lent an unwavering eye to Philippine history, exhibits a very special exibit at the U.P. Diiman Acedemic Oval this March 15.
Dark Memories: Victims of Martial Law—Isang Photo Exhibit will be held in line with the U.P. Diliman Arts and Culture Festival 2022. The festival aims to capture and reflect the Filipino consciousness in the context of the historical sacrifices Filipinos have made in the name of freedom.
Dark Memories features individual photographs of living men and women who were physically violated and tortured during Martial Law. Each black-and-white portrait includes a brief summary of the violence inflicted on them during Ferdinand Marcos’s rule in coldly written descriptive text.
For example, a photo of multi-award-winning poet, essayist and screenwriter Jose F. Lacaba, Jr., today of advanced age, bears the simple caption “Victim of torture involving psychological, mental, and emotional harm, acts of lasciviousness” There is also a QR code below the photo, inviting the reader to learn more about more hard truths behind Rocamora’s subjects.
The effect is visceral: the exhibit resembles a contact sheet of mug shots or ID photos. The concisely-written captions and the strikingly contemporary stamping of the QR codes add the character of a catalogue, as if to say, there are more photographs and victims on file.
Rocamora’s very own experience of the Marcos dictatorship goes beyond the photographic. After leaving the Philippines for the U.S. after the declaration of Martial Law, he joined the Anti-Martial Law Movement in America, attending demonstrations and rallies—at one point ending up physically assaulted by the San Francisco Police for his actions.
“I spent time in jail with common criminals,” he recalls. “And when they found out why I was in jail, they clapped their hands to recognize and appreciate what they did.”
Rocamora has since returned to the Philippines a number of times, chronicling historic, and often violent, events in our continuing history. Rocamora has produced four photo books on Philippine history and personages, and his work has been made part of the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as well as other important public and private collections in the U.S. and in the Philippines.
Dark Memories: Victims of Martial Law—Isang Photo Exhibit will be on display from March 15 until April 18 at the U.P. Diliman Academic Oval.
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