Taking images of plants and trees as starting points, this video essay presents archival photographs from the American Colonial Era in the Philippines (1898–1946), exploring the relationship between humans, nature and their entanglements with empires.
A soft spoken tale of colonial power and of the disturbances it enforces within the dominated territories. Nature was often described in history as a vast, inexhaustible resource. In the wake of the industrial revolution and colonialism, its exploitation has since increased immensely and it was turned into private property. To Pick a Flower speaks of the unjust balance of power that governs the colonizer-colonized dynamics; dominating nature as opposed to being part of it, the irreversible ceding of environment for capital, and the uncomfortable realisation that while people on both sides can take the roles of preservers and perpetrators at different times, the power balance remains untipped. (Emil Vasilache)
Shireen Seno is an artist and filmmaker whose work addresses memory, history, and image-making, often in relation to the idea of home. A recipient of the 2018 Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, she is known for her films which have won awards at Rotterdam, Punto de Vista, Shanghai, Olhar de Cinema, Vladivostok, Jogja-Netpac, and Lima and have been screened at New Directors/New Films, Yebisu International Festival of Art & Alternative Visions, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Tate Modern, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Portikus, NTU Center for Contemporary Art Singapore, Taipei National Center for Photography and Images, Museum of the Moving Image, among others.