home

4

SINCE ARRIVING IN CANADA in the fall of 2007 one question has dogged me. Not that I mind.

   I found it rather amusing. In fact, it has been an opportunity for me to look deeper into the question and reality of Philippine mainstream culture that is thoroughly colonized.

   The question is: Are you inuit?

   The performance bounces from the word INUIT (or I Knew It) to NOTINUIT.

   With dark glasses become blinders with a sticker bearing the word INUIT I walk amongst the crowd in one of the busiest tourist spots in Ottawa baring my chest or heart with a sticker saying NOTINUIT.

   At the back of my head are clear or reading glasses with the sticker saying NOTINUIT and on my back, between my shoulders is a sticker saying INUIT (again, I Knew It).

   There is a lot of play with it and with that also, unfortunately in real life, mis-identification, misunderstanding, racism, and at the extreme, violent ethnophobia.