2023

Featured in Edge on the Square’s “Under the Same Sun” Festival

Woven component: Handwoven dichroic film, mylar emergency blankets, disassembled polypropylene bags, grommets, discarded plastics foraged in Binondo, Manila.
Cast meryendas: cement, artificial model turf, mica

Walang Buwan II is a site sensitive art object meant to be installed in Ross Alley in San Francisco Chinatown. The work is woven using traditional Filipino techniques of palm weaving from plastic waste materials gathered in what is called the first Chinatown in Binondo, Manila, Philippines, and deconstructed woven polypropylene bags gathered in San Francisco Chinatown. These new materials are combined with materials specific to the artist’s practice—including dichroic film, polypropylene tarp, mylar emergency blanket. The cordage used to install this work is hand-wound from plastic shopping bags.

When strong light shines through the woven component of the work, the object becomes illuminated and also casts a colorful light effect. The casting of this light effect to the space below the banig-inspired object is meant to mimic the traditional purposes of the Filipino “banig” mat: to create a space of gathering or ritual.

In this space of gathering/ritual, small piles or “tumpok” of “meryenda” or snacks cast in cement and mica are placed as an offering. These souvenirs or “pasalubong” are gifts for visitors to take away if they please.