A NOTE BEFORE THE ENCOUNTER

To remain consistent with the gallery’s intent of maintaining a safe space for visitors, please be informed that this multisensory/multimedia art installation contains some sensitive content which may cause psychological triggers to some viewers. Discretion is strongly advised. Thank you.

CHANCE ENCOUNTERS

WITH AESON BALDEVIA

For Silay City-based fine art photographer Aeson Baldevia,  everything is governed by a system of narratology. With this premise, this first solo exhibition sets out to anthologize human stories in multimedia, replete with the notion that people are bound by a sense of interconnectedness.

This is not a mere poetic interpretation of the image as text with meaning, explicit or implicit. The artist establishes the relationship of extant objects, people, and places as subjects and the ones looking at them, who are in the position to confront the art, not as a consumer, but as a human. The artist captures the nuances of this interactive process, foregrounding commonality, empathy, and other emotive qualities. Ultimately, there is no objective distance from the subject, instead, it subsumes the onlooker.

As a glimpse of two decades of Baldevia’s poignant approach to his visual art, this exhibition amplifies the wonders of image-making to render the effect of deep human communication—of one soul addressing another soul in the room, in the world. The artist presents new intensities of encounters, local and transnational, that encourage nothing but a subconscious acknowledgement of our purest shared humanity.

LAW OF THE THIRD

From two opposite paths in life, there are imaginary intersections. These are midpoints  where unseen strings of human connection get entangled in what seemed like a knot in time. They represent the imagined third—an idea,  a moment, an epiphany, more like now, the fact that you are here.

It is the junction of humanity where you are drawn to others, just as they are drawn to you. How do they go on with their private lives? How do they persist in their plight? In this state of reflection, no matter how fleeting, you manifest our gentlest communal attributes—tracing the ways we took care of each other when the world was still young, when we formed a circle around the fire, when we sang songs, when we told stories, when we consoled the unconsoled.

The third is an abstracted sacredness, for through it, we harken back to the profound miracle of our existence. And co-existence.

LINEARITIES

The great linearity we call “life” is not always a matter of blissful milestones.

It is fraught with disruptions that may undo the trajectory. You have realized that each stage has a uniqueness of victories and tribulations branching out to even smaller linearities. Life, as you know it, is life lived with a mixture of confidence and uncertainties. Every time you reach the threshold of each phase of growth, you languish with doubts about the next while having regrets about the previous. And yet, inevitably, we go on living. After all is said and done, when we rest and gaze at everything from a distance, there exists a singular life that synthesizes the many versions of the human we have become.

DEAR STRANGER,

TELL ME YOUR STORY

Voices are sonically altered but never muted.

Heard, never silenced.

Strangers respond to questions in the safe dark.

Are you happy? Why? What self-doubts do you have about yourself? What is your biggest regret? What is your deepest secret? What’s your life’s biggest achievement? Do you think you’re ready to die? Why? What’s stopping you from fulfilling your dreams, money aside? What memory do you want to let go and forget? Where were you seven years ago? Where do you see yourself seven years from now? What great act of kindness have you encountered? What is your biggest hope? How will you “pay it forward?”

Listen carefully.

Stranger to stranger.

Human to human.

Come full circle.

DEAR STRANGER,

SHOW ME YOUR STORY

What does happiness look like? What does fear look like? What does yearning look like?

Our method of sensemaking—how we understand the world—relies heavily on vision. Through the years, our accumulation of images has given us a bevy of familiarities with loneliness, pain, desires. We have learned to see, not just look. We learn to recognize, even in glimpse, the deepest truths. Perhaps, the contours of the human condition, no matter how personal, are always universal. We are able to feel because we are able to see. More importantly, we are able to understand because we are able to feel. Perhaps, it is a proof of our kindred spirituality. The visuality of our humanity will always be an agent of compassion that we reproduce as we capture our reality.

A WORD FOR THE IMAGE

John Koenig named something the mind could not speak of, yet the heart could feel.

Sonder

[noun] the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you…*

Image is a language of emotion.

Now, you see the feeling.

*from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig

A STREET,

AN AUTOPHOTOGRAPHY

From the vantage point of your abode, a slice of everything is seen.

You’re in the company of the genius loci, the spirit of place, and wonder, what makes this area a home. Perhaps, a site of origin. Objects of ownership. A proof of routine. Here, you grew up slowly.  You wrestle with the idea of leaving one of these days. It is true, all places are governed by a system of arrivals and departures. You harbored some little emotions living here, until it is decided to step out and learn about the bigger ones, more intense, more human. The world is out there, governed by constant discoveries and rediscoveries. And yet, as long as there is space, its spirit will pull you back.

There is more in this lifetime. Memories will keep you grounded while in movement.

THE IMAGE LIVES

Recently, scientists said timekeepers may have to consider subtracting a second from your clock in a few years because the planet is spinning faster than it used to. The news doesn’t come as a shock. You have always been living in a fast-paced society. At the same time, you have been recognizing your growth through the years. Everything seems to happen so fast that you could barely live in the moment. In the midst of the chaos and speed, the desire to capture what truly matters grows increasingly stronger. Bit by bit, your eyes learn to focus on these things. You are not gifted with a competent photographic memory but you can always remember a particular image, even if it’s vague or blurry. It must be reasserted: cameras are instruments of living. The image is a conduit of remembrance as a form of sustenance. It lives, and so do we.

Words by Anonymous