Disappearing St. Malo, 2022
Public Art; Social Practice; Woven Sculpture
• Location: Socrates Sculpture Park; Long Island City , NY
• Materials: Wood, Nylon Nets, Woven Mylar
• Dimensions: 22’ x 9’ x 17’
St. Malo is an elusive place shrouded in mystery and myth. Established by Filipino sailors, it was the first permanent Asian-American settlement. Comprised of cypress huts with extravagant hat-shaped eaves on stilts atop shell mounds left by Native Americans before them. The floating village was actually more like a remote work-camp, full of enterprising fishermen. Its strategic and prosperous position at the edges of society ultimately led to its downfall. Several storms later, St. Malo is now little more than a clump of live white oak trees on the southern shore of Lake Borgne. And within this lifetime… St. Malo will disappear entirely into rising waters.
With this work, I’m bringing this lost place into our collective memory as a site-specific architectural installation and platform for creative exchange. As an installation, like the Manila Men before me, I construct the pavilion in the bahay-kubo style with the materials I have readily available: wood, mylar, nylon nets. The meandering silver mylar also recalls the site’s industrial past and that connection to climate change. This project questions how we recall a place of historical significance that’s already begun to fade away...
Designed as a social sculpture and platform for creative exchange, the sculpture has the following associated programming:
• Materials: Wood, Nylon Nets, Woven Mylar
• Dimensions: 22’ x 9’ x 17’
St. Malo is an elusive place shrouded in mystery and myth. Established by Filipino sailors, it was the first permanent Asian-American settlement. Comprised of cypress huts with extravagant hat-shaped eaves on stilts atop shell mounds left by Native Americans before them. The floating village was actually more like a remote work-camp, full of enterprising fishermen. Its strategic and prosperous position at the edges of society ultimately led to its downfall. Several storms later, St. Malo is now little more than a clump of live white oak trees on the southern shore of Lake Borgne. And within this lifetime… St. Malo will disappear entirely into rising waters.
With this work, I’m bringing this lost place into our collective memory as a site-specific architectural installation and platform for creative exchange. As an installation, like the Manila Men before me, I construct the pavilion in the bahay-kubo style with the materials I have readily available: wood, mylar, nylon nets. The meandering silver mylar also recalls the site’s industrial past and that connection to climate change. This project questions how we recall a place of historical significance that’s already begun to fade away...
Designed as a social sculpture and platform for creative exchange, the sculpture has the following associated programming:
- “When Manilamen Fished at St. Malo (1840s-1906)” by Randy Gonzales | Audio Recording
- St. Malo’s Unexpected Legacies by Michael Menor Salgarolo | Audio Recording
- DEPARTURES: a three-act Pinoy performance - 10/22/22
• Location: New York, NY
• Details: Woven Cane, Bent Steel, White Oak Sculptural Furniture
• Dimensions: varies
Reclaim Collection is inspired by the fascinating yet forgotten history of the iconic Peacock chair. The organic, textural four-piece collection of hardwoods, woven cane and bent steel weave together a compelling narrative about form, heritage and materiality from the Filipino diaspora. Imagined as functional artefacts, each piece of the collection is linked through the use of bold, curved geometries and delicate handwoven natural materials. Rooted in history but designed to fit our contemporary world, the Reclaim collection includes a lounge chair, nesting stools, totemic sculptures and a sculptural mirror. Ultimately, Reclaim is an earthy, elegant, highly personal proposition for the future of Filipino-American design.
︎︎︎SIGHT UNSEEN: New York Design Week, We Missed You — Here Are 25 Favorites From the Festival That Was by Jill Singer, May 26, 2022
︎︎︎DOMINO: Scouting, New York’s Design Week Shows Prove This Millennial Trend Isn’t Going Anywhere Domino’s editors pick their favorite pieces. by Julia Stevens, May 21, 2022
︎︎︎NY POST (Online): The best new looks from the 10th annual NYCxDESIGN Festival by April Hardwick, May 20, 2022
︎︎︎ NY POST (Print): Your Next New Look by April Hardwick, May 19, 2022
︎︎︎ DESIGN MILK: Presenting WantedDesign’s Launchpad 2022, Vy Tran, April 1, 2022
• Details: Woven Cane, Bent Steel, White Oak Sculptural Furniture
• Dimensions: varies
Reclaim Collection is inspired by the fascinating yet forgotten history of the iconic Peacock chair. The organic, textural four-piece collection of hardwoods, woven cane and bent steel weave together a compelling narrative about form, heritage and materiality from the Filipino diaspora. Imagined as functional artefacts, each piece of the collection is linked through the use of bold, curved geometries and delicate handwoven natural materials. Rooted in history but designed to fit our contemporary world, the Reclaim collection includes a lounge chair, nesting stools, totemic sculptures and a sculptural mirror. Ultimately, Reclaim is an earthy, elegant, highly personal proposition for the future of Filipino-American design.
RECLAIM in the Press
︎︎︎ CURBED: A Filipino American Designer Is Reclaiming the Peacock Chair “It’s more than designing a collection; I’m inventing a style,” says Cheyenne Concepcion, by Diana Budds, May 19, 2022︎︎︎SIGHT UNSEEN: New York Design Week, We Missed You — Here Are 25 Favorites From the Festival That Was by Jill Singer, May 26, 2022
︎︎︎DOMINO: Scouting, New York’s Design Week Shows Prove This Millennial Trend Isn’t Going Anywhere Domino’s editors pick their favorite pieces. by Julia Stevens, May 21, 2022
︎︎︎NY POST (Online): The best new looks from the 10th annual NYCxDESIGN Festival by April Hardwick, May 20, 2022
︎︎︎ NY POST (Print): Your Next New Look by April Hardwick, May 19, 2022
︎︎︎ DESIGN MILK: Presenting WantedDesign’s Launchpad 2022, Vy Tran, April 1, 2022
• Location: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
• Details: Woven Textile Sculpture on Wooden Board
• Dimensions: 15’ x 25’ x 6’
Triumph of a Woman flips the narrow, often totalizing and triumphant narrative of traditional monuments on its head by making an intimate story publicly known. The textile sculpture makes use of an ordinary fishing net, handsewn bangus, paint, and the sun and wind to convey a softer, ephemeral, and personal testament of triumph. With this work, I speak to the need to tell our own stories as a form of resistance, of activism, of place-making, and of changing the narrative.
With my contribution to Monument as Living Memory, I build on my recent work advocating for more diversity in form and told histories in monuments and public art by creating a soft, ephemeral sculpture that uplifts a family story from my Grandmother’s childhood in the Philippines. It is a story of her adventurous and playful spirit, characteristics that ultimately led to her triumph.
• Details: Woven Textile Sculpture on Wooden Board
• Dimensions: 15’ x 25’ x 6’
Triumph of a Woman flips the narrow, often totalizing and triumphant narrative of traditional monuments on its head by making an intimate story publicly known. The textile sculpture makes use of an ordinary fishing net, handsewn bangus, paint, and the sun and wind to convey a softer, ephemeral, and personal testament of triumph. With this work, I speak to the need to tell our own stories as a form of resistance, of activism, of place-making, and of changing the narrative.
With my contribution to Monument as Living Memory, I build on my recent work advocating for more diversity in form and told histories in monuments and public art by creating a soft, ephemeral sculpture that uplifts a family story from my Grandmother’s childhood in the Philippines. It is a story of her adventurous and playful spirit, characteristics that ultimately led to her triumph.
New Monuments Must, 2021
Public Art; New Media; Activism
︎︎︎ SF Urban Film Festival; Who We Mourn, How We Remember
• Location: SF Urban Film Fest, San Francisco, CA
• Details: Projection Mapping, Motion Graphics, Activism
• Dimensions: varies
Part of the San Francisco Urban Film Festival, in February 2021.
A site-specific new media installation in downtown SF, this projection portrays the six Recommendations for New Monuments that were established after my 6-month community research project “The Relic Report.” Part social commentary, part new media this projection makes use of a highly trafficked public space to spark discussions of public memory.
In collaboration with Bernadette Dia.
• Details: Projection Mapping, Motion Graphics, Activism
• Dimensions: varies
Part of the San Francisco Urban Film Festival, in February 2021.
A site-specific new media installation in downtown SF, this projection portrays the six Recommendations for New Monuments that were established after my 6-month community research project “The Relic Report.” Part social commentary, part new media this projection makes use of a highly trafficked public space to spark discussions of public memory.
In collaboration with Bernadette Dia.
Relic Report, 2020
︎︎︎ KQED feature; ︎︎︎ newmonumentstaskforce.org
• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Details: Participatory Research, Zine, Social-Practice
• Dimensions: varies
The Relic Report is an unofficial municipal study of San Francisco’s monuments and memorials and their intersection with our country’s racist history. The two-part publication documents a playful investigation of monuments in the city’s civic art collection and reflects on what to do next. A research guide of sorts, part one intended to provide fodder for critical conversations and kicked off a public comment survey which called for SF residents to respond to the presented research. Volume 2 is a creative culmination of the participants’ reflections aswell as the taskforce’s Recommendations for New Monuments.
In addition to researching, designing and publishing this report, I gathered a group of artists, activists and cultural workers to establish a taskforce called New Monuments Taskforce, which oversees the process of public engagement and serves as a braintrust for NMT’s initiatives. By creating seats at the proverbial table I introduced community-led processes into the political spectrum of monument making - a process known for being top down.
This project is part the Shaping the Past Initiative by Monument Lab x Goethe Institut, an international art initiative that addresses whom, what and how we remember in public spaces. RRV2 illustrations by Geon Joo Shin.
︎︎︎ Relic Report Vol. 1
︎︎︎ Relic Report Vol. 2
• Details: Participatory Research, Zine, Social-Practice
• Dimensions: varies
The Relic Report is an unofficial municipal study of San Francisco’s monuments and memorials and their intersection with our country’s racist history. The two-part publication documents a playful investigation of monuments in the city’s civic art collection and reflects on what to do next. A research guide of sorts, part one intended to provide fodder for critical conversations and kicked off a public comment survey which called for SF residents to respond to the presented research. Volume 2 is a creative culmination of the participants’ reflections aswell as the taskforce’s Recommendations for New Monuments.
In addition to researching, designing and publishing this report, I gathered a group of artists, activists and cultural workers to establish a taskforce called New Monuments Taskforce, which oversees the process of public engagement and serves as a braintrust for NMT’s initiatives. By creating seats at the proverbial table I introduced community-led processes into the political spectrum of monument making - a process known for being top down.
This project is part the Shaping the Past Initiative by Monument Lab x Goethe Institut, an international art initiative that addresses whom, what and how we remember in public spaces. RRV2 illustrations by Geon Joo Shin.
︎︎︎ Relic Report Vol. 1
︎︎︎ Relic Report Vol. 2