Expo 2020 Dubai: 8 sculptures at the Philippines Pavilion to showcase 4,000 years of history

At Expo 2020 Dubai, with the help of independent curator and art critic Marian Pastor Roces, the pavilion will station eight thought-provoking sculptures at every turn to paint a creative self-portrait of the country. Roces’ vision of a contemporary and imaginative Philippines will be brought to life with the enlistment of various local sculptors and visual artists, to retell the 4,000-year-old origin story of the archipelago.

‘HALIYA’ BY DUDDLEY DIAZ: An imposing indigo sculpture of a pregnant mythical figure sits serenely at the entrance of the pavilion to greet visitors. The 18-feet-tall sculpture is a rendering of the moon deity Haliya, whom the Bicolano people (a Filipino ethnolinguistic group) worshipped in pre-colonial times. Having studied fine arts in the Philippines and then in Italy, Duddley Diaz takes inspiration from his country’s deep well of oral tradition and combines it with the values of classical Renaissance sculpture. Sage ‘Haliya’ sets the tone for the rest of the journey.

‘MYSTIQUECROSS’ BY DAN RARALIO: Just a few steps up ahead, the entrance plaza is adorned by a suspended fish wrought from metal with a weathered verdigris finish (a greenish blue deposit that forms on copper surfaces). Resembling a corroding item salvaged from the ocean bed, the sea creature toes the line between the primordial and modern at once. Sculptor and painter Dan Raralio is influenced by cubism, surrealism and classicism artistic styles.

‘ROOTS OF THE UNIVERSE’ BY LEE PAJE: The second area of the pavilion, ‘Nature is Peace’, is imbued in darkness, from which luminescent species endemic to the Philippines enchant visitors. Contemporary visual artist and sculptor Lee Paje’s upended tree installation dominates the ceiling, the tallest of the three measuring 6.7 metres and the shortest 4.4 metres. The two- and three-dimensional collective piece together with its odd upside-down orientation highlights the surreal biodiversity of the country, taking after the trees of the Philippines’ tropical forest in the southeast.

‘VESSEL OF TIME’ BY PATRICK CABRAL: ‘Man is Nature’ is the next area visitors will come to, where a filigree ship, lit from the inside and out, sits stark white against the dark. Patrick Cabral’s vessel symbolises the seafaring culture and migration of Austronesian speakers to and from the Philippines then branching out to Madagascar and the Pacific Ocean four millennia ago. Even the sails of the ship will trace the historic migration through videos. Cabral’s delicate and complex paper-cut sculptures often depict the fragility of his subjects.

‘HELIX’ BY BABY IMPERIAL AND COCO ANNE: In this area called ‘Variety of the World’, a DNA string takes centre stage, towering above visitors. The golden spiral sculpture is an ode to the first humans who arrived on the archipelago 65,000 years ago, the distant ancestors of the Austronesian-speaking peoples, who later named the land the Philippines. Visual artist couple Baby Imperial and Coco Anne of Studio B+C renders the Filipino genetic fusion in this three-storey tall helix installation.

‘LIMOKON AND TIMAMANUKIN’ BY RIEL HILARIO JARAMILLO: Out under the sky, visitors will step on to a bridgeway, on either side of which is a pair of mythical creatures that are half bird and half human suspended in flight. By capturing their state of metamorphosis, Riel Hilario Jaramillo also captures the transition between precolonial and colonial experiences, between the past and the future, signalling a future of possibilities.

‘SOARING HIGH’ BY CHARLIE CO: Moving on to an outdoor gallery named the ‘Imaginarium’, visitors will find floating sculptures of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), both men and women, in honour of the Filipino diaspora. It is not just the migrants that they represent but hint at their Neolithic ancestors who hopped from one island to the next. Charlie Co’s use of vibrant colours to convey socio-political motifs is distinctive to the visual artist.

‘CONFLUENCE OF WINGS’ BY TOYM IMAO: The last installation on the upper level of the Imaginarium is a cluster of thick columns canopied by a flock of birds. Fashioned after paper cranes, a few of these birds perch on the nearby winding mesh walls as if prepared for take-off. Imao plucks the creatures from the oral tradition, where in mythology they represent elevated spiritual beings, and deposits them in the present, readying them for the future.