Sunburnt Culture

I used to think my sunburn was something I had to outgrow.

When I was young, I thought of the sun as life. I heard it from the noise of the children running barefoot through the streets, in the dust that clung to our sweat-covered skins, in the laughter that stretched beyond our crowded footwalks. To be allowed outside felt like freedom, as if the open doors of our home were gateways to the world. But a quiet shame, I did not understand, lingered on me-  closing the doors of our patched-up house, closing my doors to the world. The others ran toward the sun so easily, while I stayed still and remained hidden.

School is when I finally stepped into the world. I would eat lunch at school just to spend more time under the sun, hoping to spend more time playing with my friends, before the bell rang. But after the sun came the comments- soft, then sharper each time they were repeated: “Nagapanggit-om ka na Yan haw, sagay mo na ka bulad sa init.” You’ve gotten darker because you spend a lot of time under the sun. As if darkness was a wound. As if the sun had ruined me.

Pero paano kung gusto ko ya ma sunburn? Paano kung gusto ko ya mabuhi?

I began avoiding the sun. I stayed indoors longer, letting the shade consume me until my skin lightened again. With the lightness of my skin, with my disappearing sunburn, the comments deafened. As if both are correlated responding machines, where my skin must darken, for the comments to awaken.

Pero wala ko na reyalisar nga sang nadula ang akon nga sunburn, nadula man ang akon kabuhi. Wala ko nahangpan nga ang akon kultura nagabuhi man kaupod sang akon nga sunburn.

The sunburn was not just a mark left by the sun. It was a proof of life, proof that I had touched the world outside of my fears and shame. It was inheritance. It was memory. It was culture living in my skin.

I think about how this skin color stigma has deeply rooted itself into us Filipinos- how colonization taught us to measure worth through skin, through silence, through conformity. Even now, our country still carries that same hunger to be accepted by powers that have long looked down on us; worse, it’s now carried in both our physical and digital worlds. We’re taught to survive by becoming smaller, quieter, and softer, our bodies hidden from the sun, histories rewritten until they become easier to digest. We’re told to move on and forget while corruption cycles, while truth is buried beneath digital spectacles and comedic mockery, while those who speak too loudly are treated as a hindrance, instead of human beings.

And maybe that is why I keep seeking my skin to burn.

Subong nga wala na ako sunburn, nahidlaw gid ako sang adlaw; nahidlaw ako sang kahapdi sang panit nga matuod man na masakit, pero kung mabatyagan ko bal-an ko nga buhi ako. Amuna bisan may tiyansa ko magpili kung magpainit ukon mapasilong, napili ko gid nga magsulay sa adlaw, magsulay sa kabuhi.

Because to be sunburnt is to be exposed. To stand beneath the sun- may its heat be glorious or excruciating is freedom. It’s evidence that you were here, that you did not hide from the heat of living.

As I paste these papers, cutting and ripping them with my bare hands, pressing words against the concrete walls that have heard of a million histories, I realize I’m trying to bring that sunburn back. I refuse to stay in the shade. Every wheat-pasted phrase feels like reclaiming a language that was taught to apologize for itself. The wall becomes a place where memory refuses erasure, where history refuses to be forgotten. I paste words because our streets have always remembered before our institutions ever did. Long before textbooks tell the truth, walls have already screamed it, even when no one listened.

The act itself may be temporary. Rain will eventually bleed the ink and peel the papers away. Others may paint over it. Strangers may pass by without looking. But maybe culture has always survived like this, not because it was protected, but because people continued creating despite knowing it could disappear.

And maybe that’s what preservation is.

Indi perpekto, Indi permanente.

But refusal to be silent, to be changed.

So if someone looks at me now and says, “Hala, nag-itom ka haw,” I no longer feel the urge to hide from it. I smile because I finally understand that darkness is not something that took me away from myself. It brought me back.

The sting of the sun on my skin, the ache of staying awake to witness this country as it is, the wheat paste drying on my fingertips after pasting words onto the wall- these are reminders that I am still here. That I can still feel. That, despite everything teaching us to disappear, I am choosing to remain visible.

Pilion ko nga magsulong sa initan kay bal-an ko miski sa muna lang nga pamaagi, naipakita ko, natudlo, nadihon, kag napaambit sa iban ang akon kultura na wala sang kahuya kag paghinulsol sang kahapdi.

Featuring our wheatpaste mural, Panimalay, Gapangugat - a collaboration with Carl Lorenz Cervantes / Sikodiwa for Signs of Life by TRIP.

Activation curation: Patrick Jamora

Mural curation: Marrz Capanang

Photos by Jasper Angelo ChinNobleza

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Julliana Pudadera is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work bridges emotion, intellect, and expression- constantly exploring the tension between beauty and brutality, structure and chaos. Based in Iloilo City, Philippines, she brings together her background in Political Science and Public Administration with her creative pursuits, grounding her artistry in both purpose and passion. She believes that creativity is both a personal and social act. Julliana’s works dive into the depths of human desire and reveal an undercurrent of raw emotion- an echo of her fascination with the darker sides of experience. Her works stand as vivid testaments to the complexity of feeling, an invitation to confront both the pain and poetry of being human.