Nationalities: Eleven Filipino women in native dress (from the American Counterpoint project, Alexander Alland, Sr., Photoprints, circa 1940, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, NMAH.AC.0204)

Stephanie Syjuco, Nationalities: Eleven Filipino women in native dress (from the American Counterpoint project, Alexander Alland, Sr., Photoprints, circa 1940, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, NMAH.AC.0204), 2021, archival pigment inkjet, sheet: 38 ³⁄₄ × 56 in. (98.4 × 142.2 cm) framed: 41 ³⁄₄ × 59 ¹⁄₂ × 2 ¹⁄₄ in. (106 × 151.1 × 5.7 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, in partnership with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, 2022.24.1

Artwork Details

Title: Nationalities: Eleven Filipino women in native dress (from the American Counterpoint project, Alexander Alland, Sr., Photoprints, circa 1940, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, NMAH.AC.0204)
Artist: Stephanie Syjuco
Date: 2021
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: sheet: 38 ³⁄₄ × 56 in. (98.4 × 142.2 cm) framed: 41 ³⁄₄ × 59 ¹⁄₂ × 2 ¹⁄₄ in. (106 × 151.1 × 5.7 cm)
Credit Line: Museum purchase through the Catherine Walden Myer Fund, in partnership with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
Mediums Description: archival pigment inkjet
Classifications: Photography
Photoprint
Highlights: Asian American Art
Subjects: Architecture Interior
Figure group — female
Object Number: 2022.24.1
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2022.24.1

Artwork Description

In these works, Stephanie Syjuco manipulates archival material she photographed in 2019 as a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow at the National Museum of American History. Her discoveries there led her to consider the role of such collections in shaping American identity and history.

The source for Nationalities was Alexander Alland's American Counterpoint photographs from the 1940s. Syjuco highlights her engagement with that material through the exposure of a photograph, shown in the box where she found it. The source for Reverse View: KKK was the Warshaw Collection of Business Americana. Wedged between the subjects "Ladies Clothes" and "Kitchen Appliances," Syjuco found a folder containing pamphlets, correspondence, and photographs recording Ku Klux Klan activities. Here, Syjuco's engagement is made visible through her blockage. By exposing the backsides of these materials, Syjuco provides a counternarrative to white supremacy.