Ex Nilalang (Balud, Dyesebel, Lola ex Machina)

Ex Nilalang is a video trilogy that draws upon the artists’ personal experiences as Filipino-Australians to complicate notions of cultural and gender identity, reimagining mythological tales as celebratory narratives. The first chapter features Filipino performer Jai Jai dressed as a glammed-up mananangaal, a succubus of Filipino folklore capable of detaching its torso from its lower body and sprouting huge wings. She croons a local ballad, “Balud”, bemoaning the loss of part of her body. The second, Dyesebel, is based on the titular character of a popular television series in the Philippines, which tells the story of a mermaid’s adventures. Here, one of the mermaids is played by Bhenji Ra, along with other performers from Manila’s transgender community. The last chapter sees Shoulder dressed as an “ancestral jeepney spirit”, a fantastical hybrid creature whose morphology is derived from the jeepney, a form of public transportation ubiquitous in the Philippines. The autobiographical undertones of the performance relate to the artist’s grandfather, who was himself a jeepney driver.

As Bhenji Ra observes: “Ex Nilalang was a way to start reclaiming mythologies, to try to create new mythologies that were more celebratory, or even weaponised. The work looked at the way we have survived and continue to survive, in club and entertainment lands, and as sex workers; what are these crafts and tools that we use to navigate and keep our power?”

This project was assisted by a grant from Arts NSW, an agency of the New South Wales Government and supported by the Visual Arts and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian State and Territory Governments. The programme is administered by the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA).