Areas of Contestation

By Chimmy Meer

Katrina Bello, Before We Sparked Fire, 2024. Video w/o audio, dimensions variable.
Image description: Wide-format video still depicting two hands cupping a photographic image of bright points of light reflecting off the surface of aqua-colored water, set against a flat, sand-colored background.

WATERS OF NOWHERE I

i.        He crossed the sea in summer season to come here again.

ii.       He stoned bystanders as part of the performance

iii.       The people pulled a running rope with bare hands to make way

iv.       For the bloodied parade of repenting sinners

v.       The sun drumming down on this town, the image meant nothing to him

WATERS OF NOWHERE II

i.         In the mirror he saw himself wounded and wounding, condemning and condemned

ii.       On the stage, he played the soldier Longinus the one whose spear went through one god’s human ribs the one who made the crowd gasp and weep

iii.       In a faceless country a miracle country a buried country he always returned

iv.       What did it mean to become Christ for a child?

v.       To become god and human, to imitate what was made in likeness

vi.       When the real act belonged to the town petrified not the one crucified

vii.       Before noon the town copies its suffering and runs

viii.      Off the cliff like a crowd of bulls

Katrina Bello, Consciousness Bloomed, 2024. Video w/o audio, dimensions variable.
Image description: Wide-format video still of the lightly rippled surface of a body of water, pale at the top and gradually darkening, with the word vast in pale grey against the dark grey water along the bottom.

AREAS OF CONTESTATION

(At first, we waited to be beautiful) 

1.

In a dream, I carry and balance a small basin of water, afraid my portion of the sea will spill and return to earth. 

I cross the beach and slip through the forest, all kinds of shadowy presences following me, deeper until I reach the trail of nowhere. 

I see cherry trees, poinsettias, and lone evening flowers. 

I see flowers not belonging here. 

I make a burial mound around one flower and pour salt water until the roots hurt until the roots die.

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2.

We, two girls, one wounded, one safe, made our way through mammal mess on the white street now blood red at our feet a rope that was an intestine we skipped guts and flab, the body in parts, so death smelled      like shedding, a visceral cycle. 

A      lesson on whale explosions: all dead bodies are washed ashore.

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3. 

Our shadows pass over dark pavements, pretending to be light, hello penetrating leaves and what is it you get married under? 

Hi, the sun is unable to look us in the eye or hide, because shadows are opaque. 

In our dried-up town, only the sea persists, whereas sinking the sun is impossible. Does it make us sound 

as if we’re whispering? All of us scattered around: closed eyes, clenched fists, a voice drowned out.

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4.

Under the cherry tree, our shadows do not turn pink. Because there was no cherry tree. 

Cherry trees bloom for fourteen days only. They patiently wait throughout the year to appear before the world. By the third day, the buds open up like a girl in love who paints her lips for love, except it was not love. 

Except we are not cherry trees, perishing slowly in time, forgetting our existence until the next best day. 

We found the flower forever beautiful and killed it.

Katrina Bello, Hold Your Earth, 2025. Video w/o audio, dimensions variable.
Image description: Wide-format video still with a Golden Section split: on the left, the smaller section depicts bright light dappling the surface of grey water; on the right, the larger section shows a left hand holding a black irregular-shaped stone with a small bright hole at its center, set against a pale grey wall.

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Chimmy Meer is an emerging writer interested in dreamlike, personal, and poetic archives as contextual responses. Her works are published in Oyster River Pages, Pelikula Journal, and in her own zine, Notes on the Family Portrait of Death. She was a recent graduate of the MA Creative program at the University of the Philippines and a recipient of the 2025 UST National Writers Fellowship for screenplay. She teaches at a private school in Quezon City.

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Katrina Bello, https://katrinabello.com (b. Davao City, Philippines), is a visual artist whose work in drawing, video and photography is informed by memory, reflections, observations, and narratives about land and natural surroundings. She attended the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, received her BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, and her MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art. She has exhibited her work in solo and group exhibitions across the US and the Philippines, and has been awarded numerous fellowships and residencies. She lives and works between New Jersey, Nevada, and Metro Manila in the Philippines.

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