Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila
/Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan’s exhibition Project Belonging: From There to Here is currently on view at the Ateneo Art Gallery. The Familiar in the Foreign is the second half of a two-part exhibition that marks the artist duo’s homecoming.
In the current exhibition, the artistic practice of the Filipino artist duo is intermingled in their lives as migrants, using objects that are both familiar and strange as these serve as signifiers in themselves, holding memories and sentiments. After eighteen years, they return to their homeland, bringing back a series of wrapped objects in the installation Nothing to Declare(2024). Most of these are personal objects that were collected through the years and are placed atop blue plastic pallets in the show. They seem to float in the sea amidst Horizon Line (2017-2024), a collection of postcards created with images of maritime landscapes. These objects represent an act of collecting, a collaborative process where individual narratives become part of a greater whole. Like the balikbayan boxes that represented their departure, the wrapped objects speak about their return — a future to be revealed — in a continuous performance intertwining art and life.
Project Belonging: From There to Here
Curator: Kristine Guzmán
| Duration: November 9, 2024 – April 16, 2025
| Venue: The Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University, Manila, Philippines
| Opening Hours: Mon – Sat, 9am – 5pm