Reconnaissance

Pip McManus was commissioned by 24 Hr Art, Darwin to make this work for a group exhibition about ancestral stories at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center in Manila, the Philippines. She created the work after reading her late father, Flight Lieutenant Bruce White’s log book from the Second World War when he was flying Catalina flying boats out of Darwin and throughout the Pacific. The artist said, ‘As it turns out, the most intense entries all relate to sorties in and around the Philippines. Delving into this realm of ancestral shadows has opened a small window onto an unimaginably intense and life-altering period for the father I never knew.’

'Reconnaissance' was made using archive material from the Australian War Memorial and family photos.

The artist dedicated this work to her father, and to the 100,000 Filipino civilians who died in the Battle of Manila.