HOUSEKEEPING (2026) was a dream, hoping we made the ancestors proud. Thank you @kitchn___sync for your HARD work and @biennalesydney@innerwestcouncil@whitebaypowerstation for having us.
HOUSEKEEPING is a roving performance by Red Rey in collaboration with costume designer Kit Wu- Bylett that explores the invisible labour of diaspora Filipino workers (OFW) in service industries such as hospitality, domestic care and adult industries. The performance follows a ghost-like figure who slowly navigates the space of White Bay Power Station, draped in a layered and textured costume constructed of embellished white face towels. As the figure walks and repeatedly calls out the word "Housekeeping," they engage directly with passerby and gathered audience members by removing the towels one by one and placing them into their hands. With the shedding of each offering, the figure is gradually revealed as an embodiment of Idiyanale, the pre-colonial Filipino deity of labour associated with horned water buffalos, carabao. The performance culminates in a staged act where audience members are invited to wash the body of Idiyanale in an act of care, service, and reverence.
Debuting a new work with my baby @kitchn___sync at @biennalesydney x
@innerwestcouncil . 12pm Sat 11 April and 12pm Sun 12 April at @whitebaypowerstation . 📽️🎬 @sam_phibbs
Housekeeping is a roving performance by Red Rey in collaboration with costume designer Kit Wu- Bylett that explores the invisible labour of diaspora Filipinx workers in service industries such as hospitality, domestic care, and sex work. The performance follows a ghost-like figure who slowly navigates the space of White Bay Power Station, draped in a layered and textured costume constructed of embellished white face towels. As the figure walks and repeatedly calls out the word "Housekeeping," they engage directly with passerby and gathered audience members by removing the towels one by one and placing them into their hands. With the shedding of each offering, the figure is gradually revealed as an embodiment of Idiyanale, the pre-colonial Filipino deity of labour associated with horned water buffalos, carabao. The performance culminates in a staged ritual where audience members are invited to wash the body of Idiyanale in an act of care, service, and reverence.
I had the honour of designing two costumes for Fei Gao’s The Path, 2024, commissioned and supported by @parramattaartistsstudios , and presented at Parramatta Lanes Festival.
Inspired and inhabited by @emoeba as Magma Constricturex and @_msrist as Scarlet Voyage to the mystical compositions of @onemilliondollarsplease . Alongside Marie✨, @celinc_c 🌊, and our sweetheart of a leader @feithebeast 🦇
The Path is a dynamic performance work that brings to life migration journeys of 5 friends. Each of the five performers in The Path are adorned in striking armor, created during intimate interviews that informed each of the individual costume designs. These costumes, rendered in vivid hues of Blue, Green, Orange, Purple, and Black, weave personal and poetic stories of migration into their very fabric. Through collaborative workshops, the performers have crafted unique movements that echo their individual journeys. 🧡🖤💙💛💜
Photos 1, 2, and 5 by @garrytrinhphotography
Our paths collided so we could walk it together 🥹
Preparation for Fei Gao’s The Path often looked like friendship~ we shared stories of migration and family, shed our masks to inhabit new skins, and learned how to swim within sound pools that mirrored each in turn.
🫶🏽
Fireflower™️ stocked at @pari_ari_ show Embrace in 2024 🫶🏽🫂
What is it you want to touch, to hold, to objectify?
Let it be the angelic suspension of these Qi-orbs in full bloom. Informed by traditional Chinese lanterncraft, these bodies are hand~coiled ~webbed~woven ~dressed ~fastened and ~emblazoned with vital life force 火花
The reviews are saturating in good reputation ~ “Move over, Noguchi, fireflower is truly the
eternal flame of an aesthetic afterlife” ~ “Bitter flower nectar has never smelled so sweet” ~
“Peelings, pith, and skin. It is citric glamour… and more!”
You venture into the centre of the earth only to find orbs in full bloom. Those pin-cushion mandarins stained with sunset hues ~Snakesssssspiritsssss~ writhing in hazy cycles. Figure ∞ and liquid afterlife, dripping
Subterranean tasting notes of vanity, peelings, pith, and skin. The floor of paradise soaked in exquisite lava.
Red heart on fire.
Fireflower lanterns featured in Floor is Lava group show with @arielruby@jacquiemeng at @tiles.lewisham in 2024.
New season, new obsession. Replacing traditional paper with long synthetic locks snipped from wigs, a bashful denim suit, a customisable rain jacket, adornment adornment adornment. Encasing the eternal flame in an aesthetic afterlife.
Picking up a two thousand year old craft. At its essence ~ thin bamboo tendrils winding x paper skin in tension. Some times it feels like the least something can be before it is nothing. A spiders web of the Han dynasty.
Western obsession with orientalism fortuned me with the product design details of Noguchi’s Akari lamps. The iconic lanterns are still constructed in the traditional Gifu method from Japan, whose roots are in Chinese lantern design. As I studied the Akari artisans on YouTube, their tools, their timing, their tension, I inherited lantern making much like a glitchy Matrix download spiralling me into making spiral upon beautiful spiral.
A spark catches 火花🔥🌸 The origin of light and warmth is a radiant flower opening in petals of flame.
A series of work known as Fireflower, 2024.
{{{Clocking in for the year of the fire horse}}}
Throwback to 2024 of gorgeous babe @sneakyily walking European Runway for the Grand Silky Ball in a mid-90s (peaakkkk!) Mugler inspired gown 🦇🦢 So proud of our creative collaboration, her gag-worthy walks, and that my first garment commission debuted at a bawwwlllll ❤️🔥
