Overview
I am an art historian whose research centers on entrepôts in Maritime Southeast Asia and the visual and material cultures of Muslim societies in the long nineteenth century. My work focuses on nacre and pearl as critical materials, and on practices of ornament and amuletic form, situating these within the evolution of aesthetic thought and craftsmanship. I am particularly interested in how such objects and materials move across religious and commercial networks and, in doing so, complicate the construction and historiography of the category of ‘Islamic’ art.
Recent Projects
My journal article “Intellectual and Social Currents in the Establishment of Manila’s Academia Dibujo y Pintura (1821-1834)” has been published (March 2026) in Sojourn (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute).
My journal article “Desde el Cielo: Real Photo Postcards and the Counter-Archive of Alfonso Ongpin” has been published (November 2025) in Art History (OUP).
My journal article “Irineo Miranda’s Ethnographic Portraits of Nina Rasul and the Philippine Bangsamoro” has been published (March 2025) in Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints.
I wrote a book review of Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez’s Unmaking Botany (Duke University Press 2025) which came out in Southeast Asian Studies published by CSEAS Kyoto University (Advance Publication: March 2026, Issue: August 2026).
I wrote a book review of Resil Mojares’s Enigmatic Objects (ADMU Press 2023) which came out in Southeast Asian Studies published by CSEAS Kyoto University (April 2025).
I wrote the introduction and annotated object list for Philippine items at the Cornell Anthropological Collection for Mapping Philippine Material Culture, a digital humanities project hosted by SOAS.
I wrote a section on the 19th to 20th century Manila art scene in the upcoming Philippine Reader (Duke University Press, TBA) edited by Vicente Rafael.
Area of Interest
entrepôts, maritime southeast asia, muslim societies, nacre and pearl, nineteenth century, ornament, amulets
Research Languages
Philippine and Indonesian languages, Spanish; German; Dutch
Education
I am currently PhD candidate in the Department of History of Art at Cornell University.
Teaching
I taught courses in Art History at the Fine Arts Department of the Ateneo de Manila and I led discussion groups as a Teaching Assistant at Columbia. From 2023-2024, I organized the Gatty Lecture Series with colleagues at Cornell’s Southeast Asia Program. This is one of the longest running lecture series with a history dating back to the postwar period. See current courses here.
Geronimo Cristobal 