The Festival Queen

In The Festival Queen, multiple layered hands foreground the repetitive gestures through which cultural practices are formed, performed, and sustained. Drawing from the festival traditions visibly encountered in Cebu City, the work turns attention toward the people whose labor gives these celebrations their continuity. The repeated hands suggest cycles of preparation, performance, and care, emphasizing that culture is not simply inherited but continually produced through embodied practice. As part of a larger series on the labor of sustenance, the work highlights those who preserve local craft and cultural identity despite the changing and increasingly degraded conditions of the city.