Cartographies of Skin and Soil: Tattoos, Resistance, and 1500s Philippine Colonial Maps
October 15, 2025-February 28, 2026
Location: Asia Collection
Discover how Filipinos have long marked memory and resisted erasure through traditional tattoos, archival materials, and rare 1500s Philippine maps—stories preserved in Hamilton Library’s Philippine Collection, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, along with the Center for Philippine Studies. The exhibit, launched Oct. 15–17 with a workshop series and traditional tattoo sessions, aims to unpack how both the body and the land were marked—literally and symbolically—in response to colonization and cultural erasure. The exhibit features:
- Traditional tattoos documented in the Boxer Codex: This exhibit pairs fragile maps on paper with living maps of the body— tattoos as archives of ancestral knowledge and cultural memory.
- The Philippine Revolutionary Papers: Learn the Ilokanos’ Role in the Philippine Independence!
- 16th-18th century maps including the original Philippines’ first solo map and more.
- The Martial Law Papers: A collection of over 16,000 pages documenting the underground resistance to the Marcos regime.
This event was co-sponsored by the Spiritual Journey Tattoo Shop, the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and the Center for Philippine Studies.
