Blood Debt, explores the intricacies of colonial debt by forming connections between Filipino values, kinship and femininity that have been utilized by the Philippine's government as a means of economic development. The Filipino cultural expression utang na loob, meaning debt of gratitude or blood debt, is reconsidered through content describing cultural values and how to send money to the Philippines alongside the thousands of comments scraped from these YouTube videos. While this system of remittance money, sent mostly by oversea Female migrants, makes up ten percent of the country’s total GDP, this process remains to be complicated and constantly changing.
Just as the value of currency never stands still, a figure moves and bends her body based on the current exchange rate between the US and the Philippines. A daily archive of her movement is recorded that catalogs and creates its own narrative on the relationship between capital, movement and the transfer of value between these two countries. What is the embodiment of a continued legacy of economic and an induced moral indebtedness?
Created by: Angeline Marie Michael Meitzler
Design Consultation by: Lucy Siyao Liu
