Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien: Offerings for Escalante 
Gallery 1
Friday 7 June – Sunday 1 September 2024

Part of Glasgow International Festival of Contemporary Art
The central film, titled Langit Lupa, is co-commissioned with Para Site Hong Kong, CCA Berlin – Centre for Contemporary Arts, and MoMA PS
Commissioned by Glasgow International with support from Glasgow Life Museums. Additional support from British Council Biennials Connect and John Galvin Design.

Offerings for Escalante is an exhibition of new work by the artist duo Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien, building on their long-term research concerning the island of Negros in the Philippines. Occupying a gallery originally built in the 19th century as a trade exchange, the exhibition features an hour-long experimental documentary, a 16mm film animation, drawings on handmade paper, and a light-based installation.

Enzo and Ami have a collaborative practice that addresses forms of resistance within globalised economies of labour, particularly in the context of Southeast Asia. Their recent work has centered on Negros, an island dominated by a plantation-based sugar industry built on the Spanish colonial ‘hacienda’ system and dependent on the monopolistic control of land and the exploitation of seasonal labour. This industry emerged in the mid-19th Century, driven by a Glasgow-based company seeking to import Scottish textiles to the Philippines and export cheap sugar.

Offerings for Escalante is an act of remembrance, focusing on the 1985 Escalante Massacre, a horrific episode of state violence against protesting farm workers in Negros during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos (1972-1986). Enzo and Ami interweave testimonials, organic materials and iconographies from Negros to shed light on the significance of collective mourning in the fight for food sovereignty and land justice. The artists see the exhibition as a source for collaboration and alliance-building across global land and labour struggles.

PRESS
The Guardian
The Art Newspaper
Frieze Magazine
Contemporary Art Society

Enzo Camacho & Ami Lien are artists and writers from the Philippines and the US, respectively. Together, they have a collaborative artistic practice that moves from the Philippines outwards to other places, addressing localised iterations of labour and capital from the perspective of imperialist damage. They have had solo exhibitions at Kunstverein Freiburg; and Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, both 2018. Their work has been included in recent group exhibitions at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong 2022; the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2021; the 5th New Museum Triennial, New York, 2021; the 39th EVA International, Limerick 2021; Manifesta 13, Marseille 2020; the Drawing Center, New York 2020; the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei 2019; the Brunei Gallery, SOAS University of London 2019; the NTU Center for Contemporary Art, Singapore 2018; UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing 2017; Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok 2017; and Green Papaya Art Projects, Manila 2009. From 2021 to 2023, Camacho and Lien were fellows at the Graduate School of the Universität der Kunste, Berlin.