• Issue
  • May 01, 2023

Imelda Cajipe Endaya: The History is Female

Portrait of IMELDA CAJIPE ENDAYA. Photo by Abdullah Ali Mapandi. All images courtesy the artist and Visual Arts and Museum Division, Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), unless otherwise stated. 

Imelda Cajipe Endaya’s personal story is repeated in the lives of so many women in the Philippines: she raised a family, provided care for an aging parent, and became part of the Filipino diaspora. At the same time, since the 1970s when she became a leading figure in the vibrant printmaking scene in Manila, she has created art that engaged in social commentary and worked as a curator, activist, critic, the founding editor of Pananaw: Philippine Journal of Visual Arts (first published in 1997), and author on issues of identity, power, feminism, and the plight of Filipina migrants and domestic workers. Over the course of her career, Cajipe Endaya has received multiple accolades, including the Cultural Center of Philippines (CCP) Thirteen Artists Awards in 1990; a CCP Centennial Honor for the Arts in 1999; and an Ani ng Dangal award from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in 2009. Throughout, from her early struggles to her later recognition, she has maintained her advocacy for the arts: “We have a very big role to play in our small ways—we have to keep on working for people to be critical thinkers.”