para shang reverse ekphrasis sa tulang homo erektus ni jaya @nakabuhingoriol in video form studies ! mga imahe ‘tong inipon ko sa paglalakad tuwing dapit-hapon, sa tabi ng mga creek, tanaw ang mga mangingibig ng marikina (at indonesia haha)!
sabi ng tula:
habang nahahalina ka’t
nahihiwagaan sa daigdig
na para sa kanya’y
umiinog na lamang,
nagsimulang
magunaw at mawalan
ng saysay noong
natuto kang tumayo’t
maglakad.
hayst ang pag-ibig nga naman sa tag-araw! sadyang mainit! sadyang nakakapaso!
kitty, ikaw ang superstar ng buhay namin! at heto siya on- and off-screen sa critically acclaimed debut starring role niya sa pinakauna kong film bilang si kitty herself! sayo ang pinakamalambing na arf arf sa buong mundo, at ikaw ang pinakaunang asong nagbreak ng 4th wall! i love you kitty, yakap sa malayo <3
I was walking with a friend that afternoon, filming whatever caught my eye, things that didn’t quite belong together but insisted on being seen anyway. Above us, electrical wires sagged and tangled into each other, a loose geometry of lines that felt both accidental and inevitable. I held my camera up longer than needed, trying to follow one wire to its end, but it kept slipping into another. A few steps ahead, there was an abandoned piece of underwear on the pavement. It had a yellow stain--not the kind that signals anything urgent or shameful, but something quieter, almost painterly. I remember thinking it looked closer to citrine, maybe even fawn, like a color chosen rather than left behind. I filmed it too, briefly, before my friend asked why.
Then there was the cockroach. It stopped in front of us, still for a strange, suspended second, as if it had been caught thinking. When it moved, it did so abruptly, rushing toward the gutter. But before it disappeared, it spoke:
matagal ko nang hinahanap ang lamyos mo.
The sentence landed wrong, or maybe too right. It was sensual in a way that didn’t belong to the moment, or to the body that carried it. I laughed at first, but my body hesitated, as if it didn’t know how to categorize what it had just heard.
We kept walking. I tried to explain to my friend how strange it felt, that kind of longing coming from something built to endure, not to desire. It felt oxymoronic, I said. To be both repelled and addressed so intimately. To be wanted, and not know what part of you was being called.
Across a Chinese noodle house, an artist worked by an open window. I imagined him running out of paper, wiping his brush on whatever was near; maybe that same underwear. He was painting a beach from above, but without water-- only sand, stretching. A beach without water is just land, misremembered.
We had stopped walking by then. I tilted my camera back to the wires, trembling in the heat. The longer I looked, the less they felt like disorder-- maybe it was the disorder that made them whole. It looked like god, something you lose yourself in the moment you try to follow it.
We just wrapped the 2nd edition of the Swamp Gathering, A time out of time in the Philippines where the intention is to create a space to sit and dream, away from the intensity of the city and the pressures to produce. The residency is always different, always responsive to all of our needs and desires, it was truly a magical experience.
Welcoming this years artist:
Performance and rapper @sikwalihindupa.temperekets Filmmaker @yosiloverboy and media artist @sharafrancisco_ .
Space shared together with @zoemarden and @cliomarden .
Thankful to @derektumala who has supported us and @bunnycadag our yearly ate in residence. See you in this land next year 💙💙💙 To many more dreams in the making
i am writing this while walking home from my afternoon walk and it is night now because suddenly the doors are open for language - see solitude, or aloneness, and be pricked by one’s capaciousness for thought and feeling - perhaps that’s what i meant for the door being ajar
bawal na raw maghubad sa labas ! ahm do we have the same sun mister secretary ?
