CCS BARD

Her split body is a crack in our community (Bard) is a collaborative exhibition by the artist duo, Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho. Departing from their 2016 exhibition, Manananggal has appeared in Berlin, the present exhibition will question the interrelation between geo-cultural mobility and art’s languages of critique.

The Manananggal is a mythological monster of the Philippines. During the day she appears as a human woman, strange in her social composure. In the night, she splits in half at the waist and exposes her bat-like wings. Her torso then flies off to parasitize humans, extracting their internal organs, viscera and even unborn fetuses. She moves across media, haunting silver screens in a number of Filipino horror anthologies and stirring up panic in the pages of Manila tabloids. In 2016, Lien & Camacho’s sculptures of Manananggal’s legs and torso split across Berlin galleries, apartments, and stores. This was a new manifestation of the Manananggal, yet she carried her old baggage. Since this 2016 exhibition, Lien & Camacho’s Manananggal has appeared in lectures, blogs, and print publications. She is the target of rumor. She spreads through gossip.

Her split body is a crack in our community (Bard) is an exhibitionary condensation of Lien & Camacho’s usage of the Manananggal as a theoretical tool and a dispersed artwork. Through this split figure, a dense accumulation of the artists’ imagery and sites of inquiry will be presented in print, sculpture, and moving image. This exhibition will collapse indigenous folklore, documentary observation, social chatter, and free association, interlacing art worlds and their Others.

Manananggal has now come to New York to find new hosts. Trail her with your suspicion, you misogynistic-xenophobic cop brain.[1]

[1] Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho, Manananggal has appeared in Berlin (Press Release), 2016.

An artist’s book, produced independently of CCS Bard by Amy Lien & Enzo Camacho for Her split body is a crack in our community (Bard), is available for download here.