Featured image: From the Years of the Past Until  2026

“How Not to Gaze At The Colonial Archive”

Focusing on the remnants of U.S. colonial rule in the Philippines, England Hidalgo explores the relationship between anthropology and colonialism. His work interrogates U.S. colonial power and reappropriates the colonial gaze to subvert it.

By utilizing colonial visual archive materials and found objects, Hidalgo creates prints, drawings, stereographs, sculptures, and installations that defamiliarizes these artifacts, and allows us to reflect on the racist and colonialist practices that pervaded anthropology. 

The exhibition “How Not to Gaze at the Colonial Archive,” consists of laser ink prints on dried polymer emulsion, depicting images from the gaze of two colonizers of the Philippines. The prints are portraits of different people from the islands of the Philippines from the late 16th century as documented by the Spaniards in the Boxer Codex, and photographs of people from the same islands as documented by American zoologist Dean C. Worcester 300 years later. 

The work asks, how can people be protected from colonial reach? From these prints, the people have been removed from the picture to protect them from colonial power and the colonial gaze.

England‘s exhibition is on view from October 17 – November 20, 2026

England Hidalgo (b. 1977, Quezon City) is a Filipino artist based in San Francisco whose interdisciplinary practice spans drawing, printmaking, collage, and installation.

Emerging in the early 2000s through the Bay Area and Manila punk scenes, Hidalgo’s work interrogates the colonial gaze embedded in museology and anthropology. Grounded in diasporic critique and DIY aesthetics, his practice reworks archival images to expose how systems of empire persist in visual culture and institutional display.

Hidalgo earned his B.F.A. in Printmaking from the San Francisco Art Institute, where he received the SFAI Printmaking Bronze Roller Award. He earned his M.F.A. degree in Studio Arts at San Francisco State University. 

He has participated in residencies at LOSTprojects (Manila), Green papaya Art Projects (Quezon City), The Helsinki International Artist/Curatorial Programme (HIAP) (Helsinki) and Arrozidency at Minnesota Street Project (San Francisco). His work has been exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Artists Gallery, The Cultural Center of the Philippines, The Drawing Room Gallery (Manila), Insa Art Center (Seoul), Hotel Art Fair Bangkok, W Hotel (Bangkok), ART SG 2026 (Singapore), U.P. Vargas Museum (Quezon City), Kearny Street Workshop, Root Division, SOMArts, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Over the past two decades, Hidalgo has contributed to artist-led communities through workshops, murals, and a print-based visual language shaped by resistance and political rupture. He is represented by The Drawing Room Gallery (Manila) and is a recipient of the San Francisco Arts Commission 2023 Artist Grant, and the 2025 Cadogan Award.

Small case

How Not To Gaze at The Colonial Archive
Laser ink and acrylic on dried polymer emulsion
18” x 20”
2026
NFS

Big case
From the Years of the Past Until  2026 (Series)
Laser ink and acrylic on dried polymer emulsion
11″ x 17″ each
NFS

The Ramp Gallery is an artist-driven exhibition space at SOMArts that is currently accepting applications for four-week long solo and group shows. An opportunity for entrepreneurial artists to ramp up their careers by exhibiting at one of San Francisco’s most dynamic hubs for art and community, the high-visibility location of The Ramp Gallery is adjacent to the main entrance of SOMArts and open to all local artists in the Bay Area. To learn more about the space please visit, The Ramp Gallery.