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Title
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Engkanto
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Artist
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Isola Tong & Anna Luisa Petrisko
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Date
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2022
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Short Description
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A performance that draws on the engkanto, an environmental spirit in Filipino folklore, to explore the colonial and ecological histories of California's Pájaro River. Through movement, ritual, and a headdress woven from native tule, it reflects on land, identity, transness, and remembrance.
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Description
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Inspired by the engkanto, an environmental spirit in Filipino folklore, this performance explores the layered ecological and colonial histories of California’s Pájaro River through movement, material practice, and speculative embodiment. Drawing on an 18th-century account by Spanish missionary Juan Crespí describing an Indigenous bird decoy sculpture found along the river, the work considers how colonial documentation and the traces of Indigenous presence continue to shape contemporary landscapes. A headdress woven from native tule grass connects the performance to the region’s ecology while reflecting on histories of habitation, displacement, and cultural memory. Through the artist’s transformation into a forest spirit, Engkanto explores shapeshifting, transness, and the possibility of relating to land as a living presence rather than a territory for exploitation.
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Artwork Type
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Performance
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Materiality
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Plant Materials
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Natural Fibers
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Climate & Ecology Themes
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Indigenous Knowledge and Sovereignty
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Queer Ecologies
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Migration and Displacement
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Concepts
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Colonialism and Decolonization
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Memory and History
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Ritual and Ceremony
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More-than-Human Relations
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Embodiment and the Senses
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Ecological Domain / Habitat
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River / Stream
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Watershed
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Methods & Approaches
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Archival Research
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Speculative / Futures Practice
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Storytelling / Narrative Practice
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Audience / Engagement Type
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Performance
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Public / General Audience
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Location
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Pajaro Valley, Watsonville, California
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Geographic Scope
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Watershed / River Basin
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Rights
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Rights held by artist or creator
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Language
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Tagalog / Filipino
