This work has not been peer reviewed by the University of the Philippines Rainbow Research Hub or its project members. The views expressed are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Hub or its project members.
2026 Philippine Queer Studies Conference
POSTER PRESENTATION
The spectacle: A performance art piece on how a transgender Filipino bakla makes sense of gaze, exhibitions, and colonization
Jolly V. Torres
This creative project explored the bakla identity by creating a performance art piece titled “The Spectacle,” which showed what it can be like to be a nonbinary transgender Filipino bakla to an audience. Secondary data on the bakla identity, and the role of museums and exhibitions in the colonial history of the Philippines and in the sensationalizing of gender-variant people in freak shows were culled through various books, journal articles, reports, and websites. Relevant performance art pieces by women/queer artists also served as secondary data to research on performance art from a bakla perspective. With this data, the researcher served as the creative director in commissioning other artists to create publication materials and a cage for a performance art piece. In this performance, which took place in Anima Art Space, a gallery in Quezon City, the researcher-performer was exhibited in a cage while transgressing traditional gender norms by wearing a black dress and dramatic eye makeup while sporting a shaved head and hairy legs, much like they do in their daily life. Audience members were then observed to see how they would react to the exhibit, and by extension, to trans people. These observations were noted solely through memory, reflecting the reality of the researcher where they can rely only on their memories of their interactions with others to make sense of the world. These primary data, along with reflections of the performer on their experiences as a bakla and their being exhibited were analyzed using the Trans-Identity Theory, the Queer Performance Theory, and performative autoethnography to identify three themes on the bakla identity. These are (1) vulnerability; (2) strength; and (3) solidarity and subsequently, joy. The project concludes by asserting that the reality of baklas and other queer people is one of love, even in the face of hardships. Restaging “The Spectacle” could benefit from doing so in an actual museum to speak more directly on the role of museums in our colonization and the resulting complications with our nation’s relationship with queerness.