Across The Sea

How does one deal with questions on identity? For Vancouver-based Filipino artist Rydel Cerezo, one must come to terms not only with personal history but also with the consequences of a nation’s collective trauma.

- Oliver Emocling

The Book of Job tells the story of a wealthy man whom God favored for his faith and devotion. Job had a good, enviable life back in the days of the Old Testament. According to the Bible, he had: 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yokes of oxen, 500 donkeys, and “very many” servants.

One day, Satan, who came along with a host of angels, barged into the gates of Heaven. The devil was searching the earth far and wide for a man with unshakeable faith. God boasted about Job, describing him as a “blameless and upright man…who feared God and turned away from evil.” But Satan refuted this. He said Job was only faithful because he was blessed by God. Once Job’s abundant life was reduced to ash and dirt, Satan said he’d curse God. So, God allowed the devil to try Job.

Job lost everything in a catastrophe. He never blamed God, but he questioned him for his despicable disposition. “Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard?” he asked.

It’s this verse, Job 7:12, that inspired Vancouver-based artist Rydel Cerezo’s photography exhibit “Am I a Sea.” “My attraction to this book of the Bible comes from its unique lyricism,” Rydel says. The Book of Job is almost like a drama. It opens and ends with prose, while the entirety of the book contains dialogue all rendered in poetry.

Like the Book of Job, “Am I a Sea” treads a similar path of inquiry and contemplation. The exhibition, which was shown by the Aperture Foundation in New York as part of the organization’s 2019 Summer Open, interrogates the concept of identity within the context of religion. Here, he photographed his younger brother, who represents Rydel, and his lola both dressed in red sweaters and jeans inside a chapel, as well as familiar relics of the Catholic faith.