For Filipino-born Camille Modesto , it is the passport ’ s stamp of departure that carries the details of a long , tumultuous history — colonization , migration , citizenship , exclusion , as well as opportunity — between the United States and the Philippines . Modesto reimagines an intergenerational family portrait , hand-drawn from a photograph taken in the Philippines in 1964 , against the aesthetics of a U . S . passport page . Stamp of Departure holds multiple stories of how and why one leaves a place . A brother joins the U . S . Navy to fight a war in Vietnam that is not his own , and for a country that is not his ; a family flees a dictatorship gripping their homeland ; mothers and fathers are wary for their children ’ s future after the civil unrest of the People Power Movement ; a grandmother may never gather this many members of a family on Filipino soil again . Modesto conveys the significance of what is embedded in these seemingly minor rubber stamps by embossing them in gold leaf . Each stamp carries a different date to mark a particular moment in the artist ’ s family ’ s chronology of departures . And in place of the rudimentary border control data such as country , location , or airport , Modesto inserts personal statements in Tagalog , such as uuwi na ako . Inscribed within Modesto ’ s gold-leafed passport stamps are the codes of lives indelibly shaped by departure .
Modesto ’ s use of the gold-leaf symbolizes the ideals of America — freedom . Each gold-leaf stamp paired with each family member marks them leaving their homeland for the sake of an American identity , freedom , and a better life .
— Mickayla Lokey Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies , Art History
Camille Modesto , Stamp of Departure , 2022 , work on paper with eucalyptus oil photo transfer , charcoal , relief print , gold leaf , 42 x 60 inches . Courtesy of the artist . Photo credit : Ivan Peñafiel .
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