The houses as living cultural heritage that I thought can give us a sense of story of the place stand silent, insignificant and forgotten. The spectacular embellishes are not seen nor recognized. Until I met a scholar and fellow-cultural worker who helped me “retraced the lights through our windows with “okkil” art when I looked at the houses again in a different eye.” An example of my contention in the preservation and reconnecting with the past is part of this excerpt below.
Cultural Barrage in Public Spaces
Our South East Asian roots. Rediscovered in our houses with okkir, okkil, ukiran or ukit are geometrical symmetrical woodcut patterns used as ventiliating light screens above windows or doors or serve as wall panels in ancestral Asian houses such as in the Philippines which are also prolific in Camiguin Island where I live. Artisans are the culture bearers of this high art and cultural treasures. Unfortunately such houses are often times forgotten or insignificant in the present times. The widespread use of this wood art traces our roots back to the establishments of sultanates and the connection of the Asian trade routes of seafarers who discovered these Islands first (way ahead of Magellan, the Portuguese conquestador) from the Moloccas to the oldest trading port in Mindanao considered to be Butuan where the golden age of the Philippines has flourished as the center of trade routes. This is as far as we can trace our connection with the Europeans navigating through these Asian archipelago where the cultural exchanges has reinvented civilizations. So claiming what is original is something still very distinct as the spoken languages, architectural styles and artifacts.
我们的头发电机骑回微风安静文字狱成为触发Camiguin岛的房子的快乐体验。最初的眼和Camiguin岛okil点缀房屋的视觉文档了纸由弗吉尼亚州的“玛丽亚”邑,莫拉莱斯作为一个新闻写的文章发表。这是第一次尝试,感动了一些眉毛,并引发了这样一个小岛屿其存在的好奇心。 For several more attempts, the romance with the light and shadows of okil developed into a full blown research with a tea of architects, photographers, writers and researchers.
It was through the eyes of Maria, that I was able to see through more vividly and experience the light and shadows inside and outside the ancestral homes by the road side which proliferates around the poblacions. Camiguin with five towns has 58 barangays, experienced some economic boom in the early 19 th century which reflects the kinds of houses built during that time. 。 There were at least 49 houses identified with ventilating light screens both in the interior and exterior with motifs very similar to that of Bohol where most of the artisans came from.
We heard from stories of the locals that during those times the first okil inspired ancestral house was built around 1840. Later the okil patterns gained popularity and some artisans prefabricated okil patterns and later brought to other nearby islands by sea merchants from Bohol. An evidence of this exchange is the use of ornamentation in houses which does not necessary blend with other items next to each other. It may suggest that the other wood cuts were bought earlier than the rest. So the houses with decorative okil has evolved with accumulations of more okil patterns.
As an inspiration with okil art, my students made a modern okil art project. With the help of the local artisans, I reproduced all the Camiguin okil motif and put them up as an exhibition during the first art and culture day as the main showcase of “Kabilin” exhibit. Now it serves a permanent exhibit at the façade of the Enigmata Treehouse. I also explored the okil furniture making, and other designs which has now interesting ideas put together as functional art.