Text: Ibrahim Soetomo

Maria Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan and Alfredo Juan Aquilizan are a duo who became active as artists since the late 1990s. They moved to Australia in 2006 with their five children and have lived there ever since. Throughout their collaborative practice, Isabel and Alfredo have created large-scale installation works that highlight ideas of home and family, identity and belonging, and travel and displacement, through materials and objects derived from personal experiences. Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere in Museum MACAN is a big, survey exhibition that highlights 20 years of their career. Here, we had a lovely chat with them on how art forges a relationship, and their view of the latest contemporary art scene in the Philippines.

You are an artistic duo as well as husband-and-wife. When did you start working together?

Alfredo Aquilizan (AA): I guess it’s just natural for us to start working together, because when we were starting to have family, it’s not possible to separate art and what we do every day. 

So, you cannot lock yourself inside your studio and just forget your responsibilities as parents. I think it becomes organic, because we go to the market together, and that’s where you get your ideas sometimes. We started having children and, of course, ideas that comes from domestic concerns eventually sit into your studio work. So, it becomes a kind a subject. Going beyond that, it becomes materials that we use every day, like baby diapers.

Isabel Aquilizan (IA): We guess it’s just an automatic response to our environment. Having that sensitivity as artists, you have double vision, as we always say. We see things differently as well. 

In the 90s we started teaching at the Philippine High School for the Arts. Alfredo’s background, if I may share, is really in the visual arts, and my background is in production arts. But I love my family background as well. I mean, my mom’s side is more to performance. They are actors and actresses. 

AA: It started through our students. We start collaborating and coming up with ideas, productions and interdisciplinary performances. So, the students were starting to collaborate. That also extends our collaborative practice. Our community projects also came from that trajectory. 

Okay, so participation has been there since the beginning of your practice.

AA: Exactly. But I think it’s also cultural. We came from a culture where we have shared tasks and coming together. Interdependency.

IA: Egalitarianism.

AA: So, there’s a lot of layers. It’s not just about the everyday but also the cultural thing we’re in. It’s just sat in naturally.

Museum MACAN once posted an open call inviting us to donate goods, from toothbrushes to blankets with dreams, to become part of your works. You often involve public participation, why do you feel a shared experience is important for your work?

AA: We’re educated in a Western, what they call, “art.” You have this individualism. You tend to lock yourself inside the studio and do great things. But I guess in our case, region, and culture, it’s not all about that. It’s all about creating those relationships and spaces for people to come together. 

IA: Also, through shared tasks so you’re able to create those spaces for people to come together…

AA: …and to create situations, I suppose. We have rituals. We have festivities. We have all those sorts of things for the whole community to come, and through that, they decorate the whole town. 

IA: They get involved.

AA: We don’t call it “art,” because for us it is our everyday. We are waiting for that moment to interact and engage. I think, for us, that’s the art. 

Like a shared authorship. 

IA: Exactly. By involving everyone, you demystify the very idea of art as an individual pursuit. It’s the axis for everyone. You are not consciously making “art,” but you are there becoming a part of something. You will realize maybe not that at that moment, but maybe later. 
By involving everyone, you demystify the very idea of art as an individual pursuit. You are taking down “art” from that pedestal.
AA: You’re basically breaking that norm we’re in. You are taking down “art” from that pedestal. If you look back into the ecology, everything is interconnected, and art is also part of that thing that you cannot separate. 

Would you mind sharing with me on Project Be-longing (1997)? It is an ongoing project that speaks about migration and transport taking form of balikbayan boxes, which to me is a specific phenomenon to the Philippines. What is it you are trying to address? And does this become an initial part of your oeuvre? 

AA: Project Be-longing specifically looks into the idea of identity where we belong or where we long to belong. Be longing.

IA: It’s about the idea of being away from home.

AA: It’s a project that started during the 90s where everyone is actually looking back on what we are, who we are. 

I think that’s also a phenomenon where everybody is anxious about what will happen to the next century. There’s this Y2K, and so on. Most of the artists started looking within. I think that’s the only thing we can cling on, for us to be able to assure ourselves that, “Yeah, we don’t know what will happen to the next century, but we have ourselves.” We have our identity that we can cling on to move forward.

So, most of the works that was created during the time, if you go back into that specific period, talk about that, i.e., the indigenous movement in the Philippines; Indonesians started looking within also. You look at the works of FX Harsono or Heri Dono. They look into those imagery and traditions. And that started our Project Be-longing. We started looking into not just the everyday things, but also how we cope with those things. 

The Philippines is a country of migrants, probably because we have all these islands, so we want to see what’s happening in the other islands, and that’s what we are. We have a lot of people who are living overseas. 

IA: The Philippines is the biggest “human export.” Going back to Project Be-longing, as you were asking about the idea of the balikbayan box, as we were growing up, we are very much aware that you have this 50 by 50 ml box. Either your family or relatives from overseas will fill it up with objects and send them to you.

AA: If you go to a Filipino migrant house all over the world, they have this box that they will fill and send them back, like chocolate or tissue paper, whatever they can send back. You can actually buy in the Philippines, but it’s that idea of connecting to the family. It’s that idea of constantly connecting through objects and things. But sadly, it’s also a signal that they cannot go home.

So, that becomes a new project that we started to work on. It is continuously evolving, having different iteration. We moved to Australia with 12 balikbayan boxes filled with the things we brought.

We had an exhibition for the Biennale of Sydney of things that we’re going to bring along with us. At the same time, simultaneously, we have things that we left behind in the Cultural Centre of the Philippines. So, it becomes like the project. And then when we arrived in Australia, friends and acquaintances started giving us things that they thought we need to start a new life, and everything just goes straight into those boxes.

We created a work which is some kind of a roofless house; four walls without a roof. Of course, as a new migrant, what you need is a house, but it’s roofless one made of 140 balikbayan boxes. Ironically, this work has been traveling up until now.

IA: It’s now in Jeju Island in Korea (laughs).

AA: So, the title of the work is “Address.” Address and to address, but it’s not actually a permanent address, because it’s been traveling.

IA: And that started the Project Another Country. When we moved, we started from Project Be-longing to Project Another Country. 

That’s in 2006?

IA: In 2006. When we moved to Australia in 2006 with our five kids, we started the Project Another Country. When we say, “Another country,” it is that space in between. If we go to the Philippines, we feel like you’re sort of a foreigner. Local but foreign. When you go back to Australia, it’s the same thing as well. But then, that middle space is our “another country.” It’s kind of your comfort zone. 

AA: When you leave home, you don’t have a place you call home anymore. You always been in the middle ground, which is for us the Project Another Country.

Museum MACAN commission a new work which takes form of a real size airplane made of 92 bird cages, entitled Caged (2023). I haven’t see this work right now, would you mind telling me what this work is about, in addition to your long oeuvre? 

AA: We did a residency a few years ago, maybe seven years ago, with Alia Swastika. It was an invitation. We just came and hung out with young artists and students. We didn’t have to come up with a show. There was no responsibility.

We stayed for like a month, started engaging, and came up with this new project Belok Kiri Jalan Terus, in which later we found out that it is a password they used during the 1960s uprising, I don’t know, it’s not written in the history books, but it intrigued us. 

We met these farmers working every day with their arit, sickles. We started talking to them, asking about their work. Of course, agrarian issues came up, and that is prevalent in Southeast Asian region. We still have this connection that we can share.

We had conversations with the young artists and students. We came up with this project and one of them is the wing that never materialized during that period. We came up with this series of wings, left wing, made entirely of sickles, but we have the other wing which is made up entirely of bird cages.

Again, if you probably noticed, we play with words also because we want our audience to start reading between the line.

IA: It is your sensitivity in the way you see your environment. As artists, we feel that it’s our responsibility to reflect in what we do.Every day in the street, you see that there are people in their motorbikes carrying bird cages, either besides or at the back. Even going to the houses of our friends or other people, you see it everywhere. 
As artists, we feel that it’s our responsibility to reflect in what we do.
AA: We started to investigate. We don’t actually just use ordinary everyday objects, but we also collaborate with the local community, sometimes specifically with artisans who work within that community. So, we were able to seek who are the makers of bird cages in Jogja, and start looking further. It talks about the idea of freedom, but at the same time, it talks about the idea of refuge and safety. Sometimes it’s better to be within that cage rather than be out. 

But looking further, you also look into that age-old tradition of having a pet bird. Now evolved into the singing contest. Thousands of birds are being captured from Sumatra to bring to Java. And not only Java, but now all over the world. Everywhere there’s this bird singing contest. You don’t want to talk about the underlying things behind it, but of course, you talk about the idea of environmental issues. Thousands of birds are being poached. 

As part of that cage piece, we have the sound piece. We don’t have any birds inside. The absence is stronger than the presence, but the absence is being reflected with the sound of a singing bird. We’re collaborating with a sound engineer to create some kind of a narrative. We found this collection of singing bird sounds that the poachers use so they can attract and trap the birds from Sumatra.

So that’s the story, but of course, it depends really on who is reading. All our work is to put something in front of you, and it will depend on your experience and background. You start looking into how to engage with it and create your own narrative. 

All our works are also about the engagement with the space, how to activate the space. The meaning of the work keeps evolving depending on who’s actually experiencing it. 

How do you view collectivism in terms of speaking contemporary issues as opposed to individualism?

AA: Again, we go back into us being Southeast Asians. The forging of relationships. Especially now in contemporary period, postpandemic–not even postpandemic–we are investing more into relationship rather than anything else. I think art is a very powerful tool to use for that kind of thing. That’s what art making is. It becomes a a vehicle. I think we’re not answering directly your question. (Laughs)
Especially now in contemporary period, we are investing more into relationship rather than anything else.
It’s just us being in this region. We have all these factors like geographical factors, topographical, climate, and so on. It’s so hot and we need to go out of the house. What are we going to do outside the house? We need to converse. We have all this sitting down on the pedestrian walks.

The nongkrong.

AA: Yes, and what are you going to do? When you sit down all together, you need to talk to each other. And what what are you going to talk? You have to make these little nice things that you have to elaborate. So it’s not all about the topography, and of course, we also have political and economic factors. 

Do you go often go back to the Philippines?

IA: Oh, yeah. We maintain our studio in the Philippines. I’d say that we need to nurture the relationship especially with the artisans that we work with. Especially during the time that we got locked down in the Philippines. During the pandemic, we got separated from our children for almost three years. We had the opportunity to engage with the artisans and actually help the artisans in the adjacent towns from our studio. Our studio is in South of Manila, which is located at the foot of a dormant volcano. And so we worked with blacksmiths, metalsmiths, woodcarvers, embroiderers and weavers. 

AA: This is a new trajectory of our community practice. Before, we go to an artisan and ask them create something. A short period. But now, during the pandemic we started assisting them financially, and also helping them. Why don’t we just set up social spaces? Like making their workshop bigger and equipping them. So, the skill will be transferred to the next generation. 

This craft is actually a dying industry, because it’s cheaper to go to the market and buy Made in China sickles rather than go to the blacksmith to have them made. During older times, artists, blacksmiths and the medicinemen were the most powerful persons in that community. So we thought, “Why don’t we just start creating spaces and for the community to be more involved?” 

IA:  I think it’s just innate. As we say, we love to teach. Teaching is reciprocal, learning for us is in both ways. We learn from the communities that we immerse ourselves within. We learn more with them every day, from the way they’re drinking their local wine, doing their laundry, and just conversing. 

AA: It is the way we exchange, engage and make something. In that process you empower people. We create some kind of a sustainability. 

IA: Also at the same time, you are sharing with them and trying to make them see what you have seen, since most of them are just stuck in one place. You kind of open more doors for them and making them see beyond what’s just there, or rather being stuck in one dimension or form. 

AA: I guess with this we are creating some kind of a model.

IA: Hopefully! (Laughs)

AA: We hope for this thing can be replicated all over. It create ripples for everyone to be more more productive members of the society. I think that’s what we need. We talked about politics. We talk about other things. But I think you have to be more proactive rather than just go to the street. We go beyond the image. 

IA: But this is our way. We are not questioning anything.

Teaching is reciprocal, learning for us is in both ways. We learn from the communities that we immerse ourselves within.

I am eager to talk about the impact of colonialism in the Philippines art practice–because I think Indonesia and the Philippines share relatively similar course on how art respond to such political events (colonialism, independence, postcolonialism, etc.). 

AA: We have this parallel history. We are under the colonialism of the Dutch, the Spanish, and of course, we have the Portuguese, and then, dictatorship took over. 

IA: For us as artists, we have to say things in a different perspective with our own visual vocabulary. 

How do you view the attempt of decolonization in the arts?

AA: Heri Dono started painting using Western medium, which is oil painting, but at the same time, the imagery is a very conscious thing. We started using the indigenous materials, local materials, traditions as well performances. I think that’s basically happening throughout the region. There’s a new thing now that the first or second generation of artists living overseas, probably grew up or even born overseas, like Filipino Americans, started going back and embed themselves. They look within, which I think still a very important thing for us to create new images, to reinvent new vocabulary, and so on and so forth.

Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere (2023) in Museum MACAN is a big, survey exhibition that highlights 20 years+ of your career. What is your reflection upon this? And, what do you hope from Indonesian audiences when experiencing your art? 

AA: Most of the works are ephemeral. Works like the toothbrushes look into the part of the history of Cuba and Philippines way back. By recreating it here, of course, they will be decontextualize or recontextualized in some ways because of the site where it was created and the people who actually contribute. So definitely the narrative will change and that’s what makes works interesting. This generation will look at it in a different context as well.

We have the toothbrushes, the blankets, something that we’ve done a few years in Japan in, Korea, which is now having the iteration here, the Indonesian dreams.

It’s exciting to see how these series of works will transform, not only the form, but also the context. It would be interesting to see the younger generation. They will visually engage, have The Tiktok, but in one way or another, they start reading beyond those images and reflect on their present situation.

IA: For the context of the whole exhibition, to comment the whole openness of it, all these different works, in terms of materials and imagery, are all interrelated or interconnected. They speak about ideas like journey, colonization, and looking beyond those issues. Our exhibition for MACAN Museum, Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere, is an invitation for people to look beyond the issues of the present, through our use of materials, in connection to the past.

Get your ticket and embark on a mesmerizing journey as the enchanting exhibition, Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere, unveils its doors to the public at Museum MACAN on June 24, 2023.
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Museum MACAN
AKR Tower, Jl. Perjuangan No.5,
Jakarta Barat, Jakarta, 11530

Selasa–Minggu
10.00–18.00