"As a Filipino immigrant, I’ve often felt that our presence in American history is both everywhere and nowhere. We built, we labored, we contributed—but we remain invisible in the stories that get told.”
Dino Takashi (b. Manila, Philippines) is a Brooklyn-based Filipino multidisciplinary artist whose work spans photography, video, painting, installation and community-building. His practice explores themes of labor, migration, colonial history, and cultural identity, often weaving personal narrative into broader historical contexts of the Filipino diaspora in the United States. His work is informed by archival and social research, digging on the complexities of representation, assimilation and the resilience of Filipinos as imported labor.
Since emigrating to the United States in 2015, Takashi’s art practice has evolved into a critical investigation of identity, colonial trauma, and the realities of assimilation. Influenced by his upbringing in a post-colonial, post-dictatorship Philippines, he explores themes of imported labor, racialization, and what it means to be seen as a second-class citizen in American society. Through irony and satire, he reframes these narratives into work that is sincere, down to earth, and accessible.