Jenifer K. Wofford

What if basketball had been invented by Filipinas, and they still ruled the court? That’s the premise of Empress, Jenifer K. Wofford’s speculative origin myth for the game. The real history belongs to another empire. American teachers brought the game to the colonial Philippines as a sport for girls, then struck it from the curriculum, worried that young women in bloomers would pick up aggression, promiscuity, or even lesbianism. Filipinos fell hard for basketball, but mostly for the men’s game. “Not that any nation celebrates women’s athletics equally, to be clear,” Wofford notes.

Her paintings world-build around a 1910s photograph of a girls’ team from Apalit, Pampanga, letting its players break loose. Now they’re diwata, spiritual protectresses, leaping and contorting in poses lifted from art history, colliding in a frenzy without losing an athlete’s precision. Woven banig mats line the gallery walls, turning the gallery into a clubhouse crossed with a tiki lounge. Under the loud colors and crisp lines are serious questions about empire, gender, and who gets to play. Like a court in any barangay, or neighborhood, this one is built for community, trash talk and cheering included.