Amiel Roldan blog

Amiel Gerald A. Roldan is a multidisciplinary Filipino artist whose practice spans painting, printmaking, photography, and installation. Born in 1972 in Metro Manila, he studied Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines Diliman and has since cultivated a body of work deeply rooted in cultural memory, affective labor, and socio-political critique.  His work often explores the tensions between visibility and erasure, authorship and collaboration, and the ethics of representation. Roldan has represented the Philippines in international exhibitions such as the 1995 Japan Print Asia at the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum and the 4th Triennial Mondiale D'Estampes Petit Format in France. He was also a grantee of the Asian Cultural Council and the Starr Foundation, and completed residencies at Chashama and the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York.  Beyond his solo practice, he has been active in artist-run spaces and curatorial projects, often working with co...

Another Essay this July   by Amiel Roldan July 28, 2025 An academic speculative essay that threads data interpretation with broader cultural and epistemic inquiries. It draws upon Amiel Roldan practice’s interest in cultural memory, institutional critique, and postcolonial aesthetics. Since the image contains tabulated information (seemingly about health statistics or demographic surveillance), the essay treats the data as both evidentiary and affective matter.  ---  Between Numbers and Narratives: Speculative Readings of Surveillance Data in Postcolonial Contexts  In the uploaded image, we encounter what appears to be a dataset—tabulated fields marked by statistical detail, medical notations, and demographic descriptors. At first glance, its structure evokes the bureaucratic rationality of recordkeeping: organized rows suggest efficiency; decimal precision intimates truth. However, approaching this data as a cultural artifact invites a speculative re-reading—one tha...