UFOs (Unloved Filipino Objects), 2024—ongoing

UFOs (Unloved Filipino Objects) is a photographic record of items I’ve gathered at local estate sales and thrift bins in St. Louis while looking for things related to my family artifacts. Some objects I found in the homes of former US soldiers. Others had been discarded and were en route to the landfill, buried under broken Christmas trees and American refuse. For now, these objects live with me. It has become an experiment in organizing my own collection outside of an institutional framework, as well as a study of how these things arrived here through war, migration, tourism, or chance. This page is currently organized chronologically with most recent finds listed first.

Love does not consist of gazing at each other but in looking outwards in the same direction. — Handprinted card produced by political detainees in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya with a quote from Saint-Exupéry. Likely 1960s-1980s. Found 8/21/25.

Woven bamboo basket, possibly for storing garlic or ginger. Mid-20th century. Found 8/20/25.

Souvenir miniature nipa hut ornament with hang tag. Late 19th century. Found 7/21/25.

Igorot kulikug, a woven rattan basket used for storing cho-om, or pinipig (roasted, pounded rice). Early to mid-20th century. Found 7/16/25.

Handcarved wooden bilao with banana leaf. Date unknown, likely mid to late 19th century. Found 6/4/25.

Tiruray/Teduray monom biton basket from Mindanao. Bamboo, rattan, and nito vines. Mid-20th century. Found 8/31/24.

Oval-shaped bilao with star pattern. Date unknown, likely mid-20th century. Found 8/10/24.

Pair of large, egg-shaped bamboo nesting bilao. Date unknown, likely mid-20th century. Found 8/10/24.

Color illustration of the Igorot Village during the 1904 World’s Fair, produced for the *St. Louis Post-Dispatch* on June 5, 1904. Found 7/20/24.

Souvenir bahay kubo in a bottle. First object I found in the basement of a house at an estate sale on 3/29/24.

Identification Sources and Further Reading:

Kulikug: Museo Kordilyera collections

Political detainee art: Shackled Art

Tiruray/Teduray basketry: Monom—Teduray weaving tradition