By Ron Rocky Coloma
A seed travels across the ocean, takes root in unfamiliar soil and grows into something that carries traces of where it came from.
For Guam-born Filipino artist Geraldine Datuin, that journey reflects her family's migration from the Philippines to Guam and the ways people preserve their cultural identities while building lives far from their ancestral homeland.
In her second solo exhibition, "Ripened in the Badlands," Datuin transforms that metaphor into a collection of figurative paintings, agricultural landscapes and familiar scents that explore migration, cultural identity and the connections between Filipino migrants and indigenous CHamoru people.
"Ripened in the Badlands," which opened at Guam Museumn Cafe Gallery, ends today.
Drawing from her family's agricultural roots in the Philippines and her experiences growing up on Guam, Datuin traces the life cycle of a seed, from planting to harvest, to represent her family's adaptation to life on the island.
"I used the journey of a seed and its life cycle to tell the story of my family's migration from the Philippines to Guam," Datuin said.
The exhibition also examines how Filipino diaspora communities can learn from CHamoru efforts to reclaim indigenous traditions, particularly through agriculture, language, food and cultural practices.
For Datuin, the exhibition's title reflects the experience of finding a sense of belonging in an unfamiliar environment.
"In the show's title, ‘Ripened in the Badlands,’ 'badlands' is an analogy for someplace different," she said.
The term also refers to barren landscapes on Guam where vegetation struggles to grow because the soil has lost nutrients.
Datuin compares those conditions to her family's arrival on the island, where they established a life despite being far from their ancestral homeland.
"Coming to Guam, my family arrived in an unfamiliar place, yet they found the means to be in conditions that would make them grow, much like a seed that sprouts surprisingly in the badlands," she said.
The exhibition follows four stages of a seed's life cycle: the seed, seedling, harvest and fruit.
Each represents a different part of the migration experience, from leaving one's homeland to establishing roots elsewhere.
Among the scenes depicted are hands gathering seeds from Guam's native limestone forests, CHamoru and Filipino women collecting seeds in similar traditional clothing, and farmers harvesting peppers.
Other works feature bananas arranged over rice in a Filipino-style boodle fight, an image of Datuin's great-grandfather and gatherings around a backyard kitchen.
Together, the paintings connect agricultural practices with family histories and the everyday activities through which communities maintain cultural traditions.
The exhibition's central theme developed partly from Datuin's family history in the Philippines.
Her great-grandfather inherited land containing rice terraces that previous generations of his family had cultivated.
Datuin said she became interested in the historical connections between Guam and the Philippines after reading an article about rice discovered at Ritidian, also known as Litekyan, which was dated to precolonial times.
The reported discovery reminded her of her family's rice-growing history and raised questions about the movement of crops, people and agricultural traditions across the Pacific.
"The idea of a grain of rice traveling across oceans from the Philippines to Guam became a symbol of migration," she said.
Her work in agricultural research has also influenced the exhibition.
Datuin said she regularly speaks with farmers and helps them develop sustainable plans for their farms. Over time, those conversations have introduced her to personal stories about agriculture, family and relationships with the land.
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The experience has shaped her artistic approach, particularly her interest in depicting familiar crops and the people who cultivate them.
Papayas, calamansi and peppers appear throughout the exhibition, alongside portraits of farmers, traditional healers and fishermen.
"The stories shared between the farmers and me create a familiarity and a yearning to be closer to the lands of the Philippines," Datuin said.
Her paintings combine agricultural landscapes with portraits of CHamoru residents and members of Guam's Filipino community.
Datuin said including those faces is an intentional departure from the European figures commonly associated with Renaissance paintings, which have influenced figurative art for centuries.
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"The most important thing I do is include the faces of indigenous CHamoru people and of Filipino migrants and the Filipino diaspora," she said.
Food and agriculture are central to Datuin's exploration of Filipino and CHamoru cultural relationships.
She points to similarities in traditional recipes, commonly grown crops and the importance of family gatherings as examples of practices that connect the two communities.
Meals, she said, are more than opportunities to eat together.
"Gathering and feasting together, centered on food as an act of passing culture to the next generation, is a similar cultural activity in both," she said.
Datuin also sees cultural significance in everyday agricultural activities, including harvesting eggplants, peppers and calamansi.
Those experiences have influenced how she portrays interactions between Filipino and CHamoru figures in her paintings.
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Her work also examines how the two cultures have been shaped by colonial histories, including similarities in traditional clothing, religious influences and food customs.
For Datuin, those connections have become particularly important as she considers her relationship with the Philippines.
She said living away from her ancestral homeland has limited her opportunities to experience Filipino cultural traditions in their original settings.
Observing CHamoru efforts to preserve and reclaim indigenous practices has encouraged her to reflect on her own heritage.
"Indigenous CHamoru people, including my friends and other artists, are reclaiming their culture through food, farming, language, tattoos, chant, dance, and fashion, among other things," she said.
"As a Filipino living on Guam, far from my ancestral lands, relating to the CHamoru people and how they reclaim their culture awakens my consciousness to reclaim my own heritage."
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