To Pick A Flower centres around Kolambugan, a coastal lumber town established by American businessmen on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines in 1912, which takes its name from a tree species that at one time grew abundantly in that area. Seno’s video essay incorporates archival photographs from the American Colonial Era in the Philippines (1898–1946), and explores what she has referred to as ‘the sticky relationship between humans and nature and their entanglements with empire’. Taking plants and trees as starting points, the film reflects on the intertwined roots of photography and capitalism in the Philippines; as Seno comments of particular images: ‘In these photographs I found of people in relation to nature, men were usually photographed as conquistadors, exerting their power over trees.’
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Shireen Seno is an artist and filmmaker whose work addresses memory, history, and image-making, often in relation to the idea of home. A recipient of the 2018 Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, her films have won awards at Rotterdam, Shanghai, Olhar de Cinema, Vladivostok, Jogja-Netpac, and Lima Independiente and have screened internationally at festivals and institutions including TIFF, New Directors/New Films, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin,Tate Modern, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Portikus, NTU Center for Contemporary Art Singapore, Taipei National Center for Photography and Images, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design Manila, and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai. Seno will be a 2022 Film Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program. She and John Torres had their first solo exhibition in 2019 at Portikus in Frankfurt. In Manila, they run Los Otros, a critically-acclaimed film and video studio and platform committed to the intersections of film and art. She is also part of the collective Tito & Tita, whose work spans installation, film, photography, and collective action.
- Year2021
- Runtime17 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryPhilippines
- NoteIncludes English subtitles
- DirectorShireen Seno
To Pick A Flower centres around Kolambugan, a coastal lumber town established by American businessmen on the southern island of Mindanao in the Philippines in 1912, which takes its name from a tree species that at one time grew abundantly in that area. Seno’s video essay incorporates archival photographs from the American Colonial Era in the Philippines (1898–1946), and explores what she has referred to as ‘the sticky relationship between humans and nature and their entanglements with empire’. Taking plants and trees as starting points, the film reflects on the intertwined roots of photography and capitalism in the Philippines; as Seno comments of particular images: ‘In these photographs I found of people in relation to nature, men were usually photographed as conquistadors, exerting their power over trees.’
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Shireen Seno is an artist and filmmaker whose work addresses memory, history, and image-making, often in relation to the idea of home. A recipient of the 2018 Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, her films have won awards at Rotterdam, Shanghai, Olhar de Cinema, Vladivostok, Jogja-Netpac, and Lima Independiente and have screened internationally at festivals and institutions including TIFF, New Directors/New Films, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin,Tate Modern, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Portikus, NTU Center for Contemporary Art Singapore, Taipei National Center for Photography and Images, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design Manila, and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai. Seno will be a 2022 Film Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program. She and John Torres had their first solo exhibition in 2019 at Portikus in Frankfurt. In Manila, they run Los Otros, a critically-acclaimed film and video studio and platform committed to the intersections of film and art. She is also part of the collective Tito & Tita, whose work spans installation, film, photography, and collective action.
- Year2021
- Runtime17 minutes
- LanguageEnglish
- CountryPhilippines
- NoteIncludes English subtitles
- DirectorShireen Seno
