The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
A nine-piece black-and-white photography exhibition at the Yuchengco Museum reveals the hardships that overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), especially domestic workers, endure in France.
Titled Chicken Hands: Photographs by Ryan Arbilo, the exhibition features portraits of Filipino housemaids, with a particular focus on their tired, chicken feet-like hands. The images were taken by Ryan Arbilo, a Filipino photographer and videographer based in Paris.
The women portrayed in Arbilo’s photographs just want to support their families in the Philippines. Arbilo’s “chicken hands” images have the power of an intimate face-to-face encounter. They are portraits with no touch-ups. They are portraits of women, of mothers, holding out their bare, damaged hands—the only tools they have.
As visitors inspect the photographs, they can read the loneliness marked on the women’s faces and the stories told through their hands, revealing their perseverance and endurance.
Since 2009, Arbilo has been photographing the struggles of Filipino housemaids who travel to France to provide a better life for their families.
“The significance of seeing their bare hands—their ‘chicken hands,’ as a symbol of the sacrifice and demeaning treatment they endure, both inspired and moved me to tell their story the best way I knew how: through the art of photography,” Arbilo said.
Born in Laguna province, 35-year-old Arbilo studied French, photography, and videography in Manila and Paris. Being the son of a “chicken hands” mother, Arbilo wants to promote awareness on the socioeconomic situations of OFWs who feel the need to work abroad because of poverty in their home country.
Former French Minister of Culture Jack Lang said Arbilo “uses his talent to highlight the plight of these all too often invisible women, to challenge the viewer, and to embody which many prefer to ignore.”
Arbilo’s Chicken Hands series of photographs have been exhibited in Monaco and Paris.
Chicken Hands: Photographs by Ryan Arbilo is on view until June 17, 2017 at the Yuchengco Museum in RCBC Plaza. Museum hours are Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call (632) 889-1234 or visit www.yuchengcomuseum.org.