ABSTRACT
This chapter explores what is the principal idea behind the project Art and Anthropology: Portrait of the Object as Filipino?.. It begins with the idea that ethnographic objects can be reanimated by original and secondary users, the latter being Filipino Americans. The Filipino artists expressed that it distracts from the other element of mural, because after we see that it’s hard to get past it. It was coloring the message of the entire mural. So they felt it was unfair: that was the word they used. The objects painted on the large painting were copied from photographs of real objects. There is a digitization project which is ongoing in the Field Museum, and that of course will reach broader audience. But for the author there is no substitute for actually seeing the objects in person, and maybe even drawing some sort of connection, the way indigenous people do when they are in direct communication with their objects.
