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A CHamoru person with light-brown skin and a goatee smiles warmly at the camera. They are wearing a woven pandanus hat, spondylus necklace, and white button-up shirt.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Artists

Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco

Weaver and Fashion Designer

Yigu, Guåhan (Guam)

With each project, I aim to create something new that reflects current connections between people and place only to find the echoes of repressed expressions that belong to my Ancestors in a joyful, brilliant, and endless future.”

Roquin-Jon Quichocho Siongco is originally from Yigu, Guåhan (Guam). Siongco is a multidisciplinary artist that draws from their CHamoru heritage and Queer experiences. For Siongco, it is imperative that their work honors cultural customs that have survived throughout generations and that have been preserved in the face of colonial erasure. Without acknowledging these international practices and learning where they come from, their work would not hold the solid foundation it maintains as contemporary Pasifika art. Because of this, their work is able to take on new shapes and experimental forms, innovative combinations of materials, and the building of cross-cultural relationships that may not have happened otherwise.

Today, they have been weaving steadily for about fourteen years. However, their practice is not limited to hats, baskets, mats, and other conventional woven items. Expanding beyond recreating artifacts, they breathe new life into these techniques and artforms. They see weaving as soft sculpture and very innovative in nature, which lends a flexibility to their approach to weaving.

Beyond their contemporary visual art and larger installations, they also focus on Pasifika fashion that merges couture designs with hand-woven garments and accessories. With their keen understanding of the complex mechanics and mathematics of weaving, Siongco has created jaw-dropping all-woven gowns, harnesses, masks, and more.

Donor -This award was generously supported by the Builders Initiative.

This artist page was last updated on: 07.10.2024

Image of a body laid on top of a woven mat, surrounded by necklaces and other jewelry made of white, black, and coral-colored shells arranged around it. The body is turned on its side, without a head. Several pieces of jewelry are draped over the thigh, chest, and waist.

Tai Ulu, 2021.

The artist poses next to a maroon-and-white blanket with fringe hung in a metal frame. The points of four triangles meet in the center to form a big X. The pattern creates a zigzag of woven lines moving from the edge of each triangle to the center.

For Nana, 2019. Dimensions 4 × 4 feet. Sharing Blankets, Wallowa Band Nez Perce Interpretive Center, Wallowa, OR.

A basket woven in the shape of a lumsong yan lommok (mortar and pestle), normally carved from limestone. The basket unravels, filling the space around it with strips of coiled material.

Lumsong yan Lommok: Disruption of Spirit, 2019. Dimensions 7 × 10 feet. Bellwether Arts Festival, Bellevue, WA.