Artifacts of Empire
by Ria Unson
Exhibition Dates: January 2025
Location: Kling Family Gallery East, Terminal 1, Lower Level
Artifacts of Empire is a collection that embodies the idea of narratives as both instruments and products of empire and explores how imperialism and capitalism shape the evolution of culture and identity. Unson is particularly interested in the role St. Louis played in America’s overseas expansion at the turn of the century, especially as the host city for the 1904 World’s Fair. The Philippine exhibit at the fair was material evidence of the moment the U.S. chose to become an empire — the reason for its existence being to justify the invasion and occupation of the Philippines. As the city commemorates the fair’s 120th anniversary this year, Unson offers this collection as points for reflection regarding this country’s imperial past and how its legacy lives on today in our collective psyche. Her lived experience is a testament to how being indoctrinated in the U.S. in the early 1900s influenced her great grandfather and how that in turn, shaped the next four generations of her family.
Unson uses published text as structural elements in her art, to upend the literary format into non-linear, visual forms. Language and the written word are particularly germane to this conversation because they were the tools of cultural erasure during the American Occupation of the Philippines. She recontextualizes words with found and constructed objects, collage, and portrait painting. The resulting work offers counter-stories, in both content and form, to the Western canon, asking us to consider who decides what is remembered, how memory shapes us, and who benefits from the stories that are memorialized. In 100 years, how will our descendants look back from the world that we are manifesting today? Will it be a future that benefits the collective whole instead of a privileged few?
About the Artist: Ria Unson
Ria Unson is an award-winning Filipino American visual artist based in St. Louis, Missouri. She was born in Manila and migrated to the United States at age 13. Unbeknownst to her, her great-grandfather was part of the inaugural cohort of Filipino pensionados who were brought to St. Louis for the Filipino “human zoo” at the 1904 World’s. The pensionados served as guides (and foils) to the indigenous Filipino tribes that were displayed as savages. The Western-educated pensionados were visible “proof” for fair attendees at how easily Filipinos could be molded into ideal colonial subjects. By sheer coincidence (or destiny), Ria found herself over 100 years post-fair, living in the historic neighborhood that once housed the Philippine exhibit. Ria studied fine art at Northwestern University. She has been featured on PBS and in The New York Times and her art is in the Missouri History Museum’s permanent collection.
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