Atmospheric Effects of
Stolen Sunsets
Photographic Series
In his ongoing and evolving visual poem, Atmospheric Effects of Stolen Sunsets, Könneker creates a visual response to Esteban Pichay Villanueva’s Basi Revolt paintings (1821). Originally commissioned by colonial authorities as a warning against rebellion, the paintings capture a narrative that moves from the initial defiance to the public execution of the rebels.
Könneker’s series consists of fragmented stills of these paintings captured at an exhibition in the National Museum of the Philippines located in Vigan, a former Spanish colonial town on the northern coast of the country. He brings into conversations visual traces of Catholic influences from Spanish religious imposition, the enduring but waning legacy of American power, and fetishized Philippine sunsets with the fragmented imagery of opression and resistance from Villaneuva’s paintings.
Könneker worked on this series during his year living and teaching Art & Design in Manila, Philippines.
