Mail Order Brides (artist collaborative)

Mail Order Brides/M.O.B., “United We Sit,” (2003)

Mail Order Brides/M.O.B. is a Filipina American artist trio active since 1995 and known for their use of humor and camp to explore issues of culture and gender.[1] Founded in San Francisco by artists Eliza Barrios, Reanne Estrada, and Jenifer K. Wofford, the group's full name, Mail Order Brides/M.O.B., conflates a once-common stereotype of Filipina women as "mail order brides" with an acronym suggestive of an organized crime organization. The group has often been referred to in shorthand as "M.O.B.".

M.O.B. is known for their multidisciplinary projects which span video, photography, installation, sculpture and performance.[2] Their work has been written about in critical publications including Decolonizing Culture (Anuradha Vikram), Pinay Power (Melinda de Jesus), Tropical Renditions (Christine Bacareza Balance), and Queering the Global Filipina Body (Gina K. Velasco).

M.O.B.’s work has been exhibited at the Asian Art Museum, the San Jose Museum of Art, the M.H. de Young Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Triton Museum of Art, the Chinese Culture Center, Kearny Street Workshop, the Luggage Store Gallery, and with the San Francisco Art Commission. They have presented performances for Southern Exposure art space, SOMArts, and at the 2018 Manila Biennale. Their film/video works have screened at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the Mix Festival and the International Film Festival in Detroit.[3]

  1. ^ See, Sarita Echavez (2009). The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance. University of Minnesota Press. p. 129. ISBN 978-0-8166-5318-8 – via Google Books. ...formed the guerrilla feminist art collective Mail Order Brides/MOB in 1995
  2. ^ de Jesús, Melinda L. Peminist Critical Theory Theorizing the Filipina/American Experience. Routledge Press, 2005, pp. 291 - 307.
  3. ^ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Bay Area Now 4: Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.. YBCA, 2005, pp. 44-45.