Charlene Tan is a visual artist who explores her ancestral heritage and reclaims her ancestral identity to decolonize herself. In researching textile patterns from the Philippines and her art practice, she develops muscle memory of the patterns she finds to reconnect to her homeland. Tan’s body of work, 'Research and Remembering', is a documentation of this journey. From tracing T’boli textile patterns symbolizing crocodile spirits with Ube, a purple yam, to using abalone to map out Kappi, crab symbols, to honoring marine based craftsmanship of the Philippines and California, Tan literally weaves a connection between her present and her ancestry.
Piña, a textile traditionally made with pineapple fiber, is incredibly fragile and translucent like organza. It lends itself to ceremonial use and is traditionally used for formal wear, such as men’s barongs, a button up collared shirt with embroidery, or women’s dresses. Heavily influenced by colonial tastes and trade networks, Piña textiles reflect this in embroidery and fiber manipulation techniques, many of which contain complex narratives of the wearer, a soft power of identity and status.
This Piña series created in collaboration with Morgann Trumbull Projects and Moonlight Press in 2025 explores the specificity of the textile tradition of Filipino Piña textiles. The print Ghost Piña was crafted using the preserved fiber structures of a Piña dining place setting. The woodblock prints, Piña Embroidery Sample 1, 2, 3, and 4, are zoomed in details of the whitework embroidery of the Piña embroidery.
