#selfie, 2014
​Digitally altered smartphone photos

"Maria Patricia Abuel questions conservative gendered expectations with regards to labour, notions of femininity, and moral behaviour to which Filipinas, both in the Philippines and in the diaspora, are held. Her series of digitally altered smartphone photos #Selfies (2014), Babae, Diyos, and Trabaho (Woman, God, and Work) label her ironic self-portraits, in which she renders herself as the archetypal fair, pious, and sacrificial Filipina. Recognition is often gained by looking into the other’s eyes, however in these rendering, Abuel denies the return of the gaze. We can never fully know the women in these photos, as they are two-dimensional representations informed by colonial domination, neoliberal agendas, and religious doctrine. Abuel queers the normative and stereotypical expectations of Filipinas in her self-representations, and puts forward her hybrid subjectivity constructed from multiple and sometimes competing influences." - Marissa Largo (Visualizing the Intimate in Filipino/a Lives)

www.queerfilipinosincanada.ca/art-exhibit