These tableaus brim with symbolism and allegory, but there is also, lastly, a Wildness in their aesthetic of excess. Navarroza’s zealous use of colour, pattern, and texture – in addition to the plethora of objects and gestures – as seen in the backdrop of The Shopper / Heart Sutra (Self-Portrait with Artichoke) result in an amalgamation of overwhelming visual and cognitive stimuli that articulate as Postcolonial Camp. The ‘Postcolonial’ preface highlights the necessity of postcolonial agency in engaging with this notion as a method of subversion following over 500 years of subjugation by Spain, America and Japan; ‘Camp’, as described by Susan Sontag in her pioneering text ‘Notes on Camp’, is the victory of style, aesthetics, and irony over content, morality, and tragedy. The artist has admitted to shying away from descriptors such as Kitsch or Camp in the past, preferring instead serious and plainly conceptual modes. However, her realisation of these opinions’ colonial and patriarchal inheritance unlocked her current practice full of vivacity and theatricality, which is no less critically engaged. Countries of the Global South such as the Philippines that have acceded a kitsch mode are particularly susceptible to derogatory condescension regarding taste. Though, capitalist forces of the Global North such as that which precipitated the widespread Filipino migration movement – that Navarroza is a participant of – and Oversees Foreign Worker (OFW) phenomenon are largely responsible for the same aesthetic it derides. These Filipinos often bring back indexes of the cultures in which they found success such as curtain swags or Roman columns that might be called unsophisticated, but in reality reflect a perseverance and resourcefulness that should be celebrated. The Postcolonial Camp thus emerges within contemporary Philippines and Navarroza’s tableaus as an alternative reality filled with creativity, playfulness and substance.

 

This series’ title As Wild As They Come indicate Navarroza’s intention of maximising the Wild signifier. She has indeed accomplished this, as these photographs brim with a visual lexicon that undermines conventional and destructive meanings of the Other, nature, women, and excess. The artist’s tableaus celebrate what we’ve been conditioned to be ashamed about, embracing the chaos in a cathartic act of joy, play, and sensorial delight.