ABOUT
UPCOMING
EDITIONS
FROM 6 TO 9
Eisa Joscon
March 21st - April 27th
At the core of Jocson’s practice is an investigation into the global production of happiness and its uneasy ties to the migration industry. The Philippines, one of the world’s largest exporters of labour, have long depended on Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs). These migrant workers make up a major part of the service and entertainment sectors abroad, tasked with performing care, joy and hospitality: emotional labour as much a commodity as physical labour. This extends beyond domestic work to artistic migration, as seen in the 2006 exodus of senior Ballet Philippines dancers to Hong Kong Disneyland, where fantasy itself is outsourced. This theme was first explored in her work Happyland (2017). The title refers both to Disney’s slogan for its theme parks—“the happiest place on earth”—and to a densely populated slum in Manila, laying bare the intersection of fantasy, labour and
economic disparity.
Princess Parade (2018) stages a public intervention in Manila sretching this investigation further. Seven performers, dressed as Snow White, parade from the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) to the U.S. Embassy, concluding their journey with dinner at a Chinese restaurant. The route itself traces a narrative of geopolitical power: the CCP, a state-funded cultural institution; the U.S. Embassy, a site of lingering colonial power; and the Chinese restaurant, a symbol of global economic influence.
Throughout the procession, the performers enact the familiar, highly controlled gestures of Disney princesses—delicate waves, graceful salutes and rehearsed waltzes. These movements offer a sharp critique of the commodification of happiness and the racialised dynamics of labour. The male and female Southeast Asian dancers embrace gender fluidity, disrupting the fantasy of Disney’s archetypal whiteness. Their costumes—frayed, ill-fitting—embody a “corruption of a copy”, a visual metaphor for a “corrupted file”, exposing the fractures in the globalised homogenous fantasy of perfection.
The performance moves through spaces marked by economic and architectural contrasts. The brutalist CCP, designed by Leandro V. Locsin, stands as a monument to high culture, while the Manila seawall, lined with informal settlements, reveals the stark realities of economic inequality. The fortified, heavily surveilled U.S. Embassy reinforces a different kind of power—one of borders, security and geopolitical control. These juxtapositions reflect the broader disparities between cultural prestige and economic precarity.
As the Snow Whites weave through the city, they encounter real-world disruptions. Tourists, curious children and dismissive truck drivers participate in their choreographed routine. Police officers, visibly unsettled by the presence of cameras and performers, reinforce the tenuous balance between art and authority. Even white horses pulling tourist carriages punctuate the surreal interplay of fiction and reality.
The hijacked Snow Whites can evoke an otherworldly presence, resembling nymphs when they perform flock-like movements near the CCP’s reflective lake or weave their way toward the distant horizon of the South China Sea. But also when they sigh, giggle and repeat phrases like “Hello there” and “Goodbye” in a loop, mimicking the scripted automation of theme park they can be take for animatronic figures. Their movements expose the fleeting, pre-packaged nature of commodified joy—joy that must be performed on demand, exported as a product and endlessly replicated.
Through Princess Parade, Jocson critiques the migration industry, the racialised labour structures of the entertainment sector, and the ways in which capitalism co-opts dreams and aspiration. The 26-minute video documentation of the performance reveals an incisive meditation on the economies of happiness, the performers who sustain them and the hierarchies they uphold.
Princess Parade
2018
Video
26 minutes 08 seconds
Documentary extracts from the public intervention on October 9th, 2018, en route from the
Cultural Centre of the Philippines to the U.S. Embassy, concluding with dinner at a Chinese
restaurant, Manila.