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Abstract
Super typhoon Yolanda (internationally named Haiyan)—the strongest storm in recorded history—ravaged through the Visayan Islands of the Philippines on 8 November 2013. In this article I examine the transformative power of collective grieving in translocal and transnational contexts postdisaster. Having served as a disaster relief worker across the Visayas, and now writing as a transnational Filipina scholar, I inquire: How is disaster memory shared from body to body, from the geographical margins of a nation-state to the rest of an archipelago, and across the ocean to global diasporas? How might acts of remembering and grieving together enable new forms of political agency in the wake of a super typhoon? In exploring the relationship between disaster memory and social repair, I consider the creation of ritual as an art practice, performance, and protest. I outline how my creative-critical engagement with ritual in three different forms has facilitated the co-creation of spaces for the individual to grieve together with the collective. This series of projects, together called “WALANG-WALA,” explores the embodiment and experience of a state of absolute emptiness and nothingness one is left with after catastrophic disasters such as Yolanda. In these rituals, I approach disaster memory as a cultural practice of collective and active remembering of what we love and lost.
超级颱风约兰达（在国际上命名为海燕）——这个历史纪录上威力最强大的颱风——在2013年十一月八号侵袭了菲律宾的米沙鄢群岛。我于本文中检视在跨地域与跨国的灾后脉络中，集体哀悼的转型力量。我曾身为米沙鄢群岛的救灾工作者，目前则以跨国菲律宾学者的身份从事写作。我质问道：灾害记忆如何在身体之间、以及从一个国族国家的地理边缘到群岛的其他部分、以及跨越海洋至全球的离散社群中相互分享？共同追忆与哀悼的行动，如何在面对超级颱风时，使政治行动的崭新形式成为可能？我藉由探讨灾害记忆与社会修復之间的关系，视仪式的创造为艺术实践、展演与抗议。我概述自身对三个不同形式的仪式所进行的创意性批判涉入，如何为个人促进了共同创造的空间进行集体哀悼。这一系列共同称作“空无一物（WALANG-WALA）”的计画，探讨一个人在诸如约兰达等毁灭性的灾害之后所遗留的绝对空虚与无物的状态之体现与经验。在这些仪式中，我将灾害记忆视为对我们所喜爱与遗失之物的集体且积极追忆的文化实践。
El extraordinario tifón Yolanda (internacionalmente designado como Haiyan)––la tormenta más fuerte que registra la historia––arrasó con todo a través de las Islas Visayas de las Filipinas el 8 de noviembre de 2013. En este artículo examino el poder transformador del luto colectivo en los contextos translocales y transnacionales del posdesastre. Tras servir como trabajador de alivio por los efectos del desastre a través de las Visayas, y ahora escribiendo como erudita transnacional filipina, me pregunto: ¿Cómo se comparte el recuerdo de un desastre de un cuerpo a otro, desde las márgenes geográficas de una nación-estado al resto de un archipiélago, y a través del océano a las diásporas globales? ¿Cómo podrían los actos conjuntos de rememorar y llorar los muertos habilitar nuevas formas de agencia política en el evento de un super tifón? Al explorar la relación entre el recuerdo del desastre y la reparación social, yo tomo en cuenta la creación del ritual como práctica, realización y protesta. Esbozo el modo como mi compromiso creativo–crítico con el ritual en tres formas diferentes ha facilitado la co-creación de espacios para que el individuo se duela junto con el colectivo. Esta serie de proyectos, denominados en conjunto “Walang-Wala”, explora la materialización y la experiencia del estado de absoluto vacío y soledad en el que uno queda después de desastres catastróficos como Yolanda. En estos rituales, me aproximo al recuerdo del desastre como una práctica cultural de recuerdo colectivo y activo de aquello que amamos y perdimos.
Notes
1. The controversial figure of “10,000 dead” reported by Philippine National Police Chief Superintendent, Elmer Soria, was denied by the Malacañang Palace in the immediate aftermath. The Government of the Philippines reports a casualty count of 6,300 (Government of the Philippines Citation2015), whereas a grassroots alliance of Yolanda survivors in the Eastern Visayas, People Surge, reports 18,000 (People Surge Citation2015). This contention in body count is inscribed in the politics of mourning where power determines the historical truth to the scale of death and devastation.
2. The author participated in the Philippine chapter of the Performance Studies International Conference to present “WALANG-WALA/Point.Zero: A Video Ritual” at the Manila Conference in November 2015 to commemorate Yolanda’s second anniversary.
3. I write with the pronouns our, we, and us to signify my primary identification with Filipino/as in the Philippines as a transnational Filipina.
4. MYSTERYFORMS is an audiovisual artist who emigrated to Canada from the Philippines in 1993. His current portfolio (http://seekersinternationalx.blogspot.ca) features a combination of soundscapes and multimedia installations.
5. Dennis D. Gupa is currently a PhD student of Applied Theatre at the University of Victoria. He presented on the “WALANG-WALA” installation at the PSi#22 Performance Studies International Conference: Performance Climates, Melbourne, Australia on 5 July 2016.
6. This video project was reperformed in Dis/Quieting Desires Endnotes Conference in UBC on 15 May 2015, and in Sa Tagilid Na Yuta (On Tilted Earth): Performance in Archipelagic Space PSi Conference in Manila on 8 November 2015.
7. The virtual vigil can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/125476214.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Chaya Ocampo Go
CHAYA OCAMPO GO is a research fellow for the Citizens’ Disaster Response Centre in the Philippines, and a PhD student at the Geography Department of York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada. E-mail: [email protected]. This article was written over the course of her graduate studies at the Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality & Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. Her transnational work remains committed to life and resurgence in ravaged ecologies and communities at the front lines of the climate crisis.