FEATURE

Cult Followings
INQUISITORS CONSTANTLY SEARCHING FOR THE WEARABLE, HUNTERS OF FASHION TRENDS BEFORE THEY HIT THE STORES AND STREETS, STYLE CURATORS RAISING OUR BAR OF TASTE, CRAFTSMEN EXPLORING CROSS-CULTURAL AESTHETICS, VOICES RAISING OUR CAUSES TO THE WORLD, AND FIGURES CHANGING THE WAY LIFESTYLE IS CONVEYED ON-AND-OFFLINE THESE PEOPLE ARE REDEFINING WHAT CULT FOLLOWING MEANS IN TODAYS MANILA

Bang Pineda, Rossy Yabut and Bong Rojales of Heima, Michelline Syjuco, Thysz Estrada, and Mano Lotho

THE AESTHETES

BY GEOLETTE ESGUERRA/ TEXT BY NANTE SANTAMARIA / PHOTOGRAPHS DOC MARLON PECJO (ARTISTS), BRAD VILLALON (ADVOCATES AND NETIZENS), AND ROY MACAM (AESTHETES, STYLE HUNTERS, AND POSTMODERNS)
STYLING ELDZS MEJIA / MAKEUP EMMANUEL CONCEPCION (KAHAYON, LUNA, OPOSA, FERNANDEZ), DON DE JESUS (DA BOVILLE, MEJIA, PEAFLORIDA, AND TAN), BYRON VELASQUEZ (IGNACIO, WATARU, CANELA, BUENSUCESO, AND SANTOS), KAREN SANTOS (MAGALONA, GUISON, CONCEPCION, AND YABUT), PONG NIU (SINGSON AND CO), AL DE LEON (SYJUCO, DARYLL, AND PINEDA), IYA CALATA (ESTRADA, LOTHO, LEUTERIO), GERY PENASO (MAGALLANES, GONZALES, AND LOE), ALL FOR M.A.C. / HAIR MARY GRACE CANALES, ZANIZYN MANRIQUE, AND ESTER BERNADOS (ARTISTS, NETIZENS, AND ADVOCATES), MANLY BOHOL, AND IARU ALBANU (STYLE HUNTERS, AESTHETES, AND POSTMODERNS) FOR VIVERE SALON SHOT ON LOCATION AT ENDERUN COLLEGES, BONIFACIO GLOBAL CITY / SPECIAL THANKS TO GEISER MACLANG, YELLOW CAB PIZZA, AND KRISPY KREME
METRO

154

JUNE 2012

JP Singson, Carlos Concepcion, David Guison, and Camille Co

METRO

THE STYLE HUNTERS

155
JUNE 2012

A
MANO LOTHO BANG PINEDA

FEATURE
S SOCIAL MEDIA CONTINUES TO CHANGE

the shape of publishing, so does every personality behind every username and profile picture stalked by online Manila. Traveling, whether for the worlds fashion weeks or for business trips, has never been close to our home headquarters, demanding real-time updates and reviews before runway trends are even on print. Our independent fashion labels watch their pieces fly off their online racks and theyre counting new stockist fast across Southeast Asia. High end designer brands are refurbishing their pieces in our boutiques as collections expand into Pre-Fall and Resort increments. Our artists are becoming increasingly multi-disciplinary, raising the craftsmanship and price points on what once were largely utilitarian or decorative. Our social advocates are reaching wider in exchanging best practices and in gaining home support from the international circuit. There has never been a time when lifestyle is so enmeshed with personal branding, and the means of subscription is practically free. There is no shroud covering the cult leadersdesigners, stylists, merchandisers, marketing minds, artists, activists, and technopreneurschanging the code of Manilas beliefs.

He makes them look camera-ready from head to toe, building their superstar images from the ground and up.

MICHELLINE SYJUCO

When National Artist for sculpture Napoleon Abueva asks you to get started on making jewelry, you do it. The man was so pleased with Michelline Syjucos first cuffa miniature sculpture, which she attached on a braceletthat he asked her to join an upcoming show, Anitos y Otros. I did it for an entire year, non-stop, like I was possessed. I made 88 pieces for the collection. I couldnt give it up, she recalls. While some artists shy away from fashion, she considers it part of her art. Each piece is unique, and she makes everything by hand and by herself. She is only honoring her parents. She listens to her mother, Jean Marie, who gave a challenging dictum: Dare to be different. She follows the creative footsteps of her father Cesare, pioneer of experimental art in the Philippines. The eccentricity began at home as they had furniture in the ceiling, making some fanatically religious parents think they worship the devil and hence banning their kids from playing with them. But now that Im older, people come to me and say thats cool, she sighs. And cool she is. Come July, she slides back to the gallery for another exhibit where shes producing six guardian figures, part-native myth and part personal creations, expanding a world thats pure Syjuco.

THYSZ ESTRADA

THE AESTHETES
It takes a while to build up to a taste level, Mano Lotho is referring to the refinement of H&F, from which Manila owes its access to the globes designers du jour, and it also takes a while for people to commit to buying items. Lotho came into the marketing of the H&F group Homme et Femme, Fred Perry, Univers, recently Comme des Garons, and latest Y-3only in the last two years after putting together a curated art show as the culmination of his undergrad thesis. But instead of working in a fine arts gallery, he chose to deal with racks of fine clothing. I think taste is encompassing. Regardless of what you do, it manages to creep up and show in your work, he says. So while Lothos fashion background is rooted in streetwearthe wonders of collectible sneakers, which crept up to trousers, and then to shirts instead of the expected silkscreened hip-hop or punk teeshe traded in some of his pieces for button downs, selvedge, and most recently, a skirt. I like playing with peoples mindsto make them say Why is he wearing it? and to and make it digestible, he says. From the way the company is expanding, Lotho looks braced to let their customers eat sweeter cake. In the first installation of the Ayala Malls Style Origins last May, Bang Pineda presented quite a striking collection instead of the classic suits expected of menswear. Well, there were suits, but they had straps at the back and studs on the shoulders. Think Thom Browne S/S 2012, which featured strong shoulders with goth spikes. Its something not an ordinary man would wear, and I dont care if they wont, Pineda confidently says. I have my own market. If only to don the colors Pineda used, these men already need not care for stares. And to appreciate the volume and the space with which people will be willing to get close, it takes a mind eager to discover not only a different aesthetic pleasure but also an insight into human behaviour. He meets many of these people when theyre behind the cameraactors, hosts, show people who earn for showing extraordinary personas. Aside from being a veritable designer for clothes and even shoes, he is also an in-demand fashion stylist for the likes of actor Jake Cuenca and singer Sarah Geronimo.
METRO

Everybody knows Thysz Estrada as the marketing figure behind the success of Moonleaf, a formerly standalone Taiwanese tea shop, which he began championing to his friends and, in the last 2 years, has expanded into 21 branches and counting, its social media buzz courtesy of his network, mainly fashion people but also counting students, businessmen, and all sorts of creatives. Im driving on a road paved with my big mouth, he says, now also co-founding DGNTY, his own design and digital marketing/PR company. He was actually a Linguistics student at University of the Philippines, but his interests and connections span wide. He says, The more you do the things that you really love and find all the right excuses to do it, the more you find yourself being really good at it, enough to make a living. Dressed in his choice of Don Protasio dresses and Miadore statement accessories, or Paradigm Shift drapes and Bosquejo hardware, some variations on these, he is crazy in-the-know. Theyve started taking design and social media management work for DGNTY, and soon, they will be accepting fashion representation. The goal: Transform crazy drunken-night ideas to global phenomena worn by the coolest kids from Cavite to Helsinki.

HEIMA (BONG ROJALES AND ROSSY YABUT)

For three years now, Heima has served as the design shop for the coolsavvy. From starting at its small shop in Cubao X, theyve now taken in a more mature image as a peddler of a designed lifestyle in Makatis LRI home furnishings hub, but they still maintain both spotsthe first one an incubation of ideas, a place to try new things, a venue to introduce new artist or collaborations, and the new one catering to the upscale, the professional interior decorators and home owners. Brought together by Lomography, Rossy Yabut takes care of the design and Bong Rojales contributes his knack for marketing the brand, specifically to their niche of creatively disposed clients. Thats why theyve been championing artists to do their first exhibits at Heima. There are the watercolorists Valerie Chua, Soleil Ignacio, and Tokwa Peaflorida, the multimedia collective Folk Superlative, and they even tie-up on events with the design brand Punchdrunk Panda. We love the thrill of finding indie music early before a lot of people have heard them; the same, I guess, with some visual artist, Rojales says. When they opened, they had Encounters With A Yeti perform after just releasing its album, and now, theyre supporting the electronic duo Tarsius. The
JUNE 2012

156

automatically cool, Co gushes about Moss, and the same thing could be said about her. Every start-up young ladies brand that wants to be introduced and even established ones wanting to stay cool go to her. Whenever she, herself, thinks about staying relevant and making good business, she looks at Rajo Laurel and praises him. He knows how to merge design with business, with management. We lack that here. The brand can go on even when hes very old, even when hes no longer the designer. Thats why, this year, the now 24-year-old Co says, I want to have more slashes. Shes now open to being a stylist, like how she tried starting a blog just last year after having been comfortable managing her own fashion label, Coexist. When girls come to her saying I want to be like you, she doesnt tell them what to wear. She writes posts saying, This is how my design process goes. Carlos Concepcion has only two styling rules: 1) go with your instinct 2) keep things clean. Thats how he designed clothes for the premium denim brand Viktors younger line, Vik, which consisted of the labels signature jeans, some tees, tanks, and variations on the James Dean jacket. Not like some celebrity consultant, he punched in his 10 to sevens, five times a week, did marketing for the brand, and when clients came in, Lissa Kahayon, Saab Magalona, and Jayvee Fernandez did the fittings himself. So when more styling gigs came in while he was doing a fashion column in the newspaper, he decided not acoustic siblings of Outerhope gigged for them back in 2006. This year, to spread himself too thin and neatly transitioned into being a fullthey are doing a couple of celebrity homes through their interior detime stylist. Despite not being a die-hard follower of any other stylists sign firm, Heim, and they continue to expand their product selections career, hes just very good at figuring it all out. Sometimes, he thinks, down to magazines, bags, and bicycles. What if people are like Thats shitty! but at the end of the day, its my work, so he takes charge. A lot of the shoots I produced are memorable ones because I have control over the whole outcome, he says, insisting on booking every talent himself and being involved, down to post-production. Come September, he cannot be more ready for his CAMILLE CO new stint as a student at Parsons in New York. With a promise to go While the followers of Camille Tries to Blog want to be like her, Camille back, he says, Its my starting off point. Co wants to be like Kate Moss, and so far, she has already leveled with her idol in endorsing Mango, at least in Manila. And last December, DAVID GUISON the Spanish clothing brand proclaimed her as their It girl for Summer With all of David Guisons partner brands, he has now allotted a room 2012, so she was flown in to the Mango headquarters in Barcelonaan just for his clothes. Think of it as The Closet, where he has a rack for international project just might be brewing. Anything she touches is the last seasons pieces, for a few staples, and for the freshly delivered

CARLOS CONCEPCION

THE NETIZENS

THE STYLE HUNTERS

METRO

157

JUNE 2012

samples. If you think hes just another boy who blogs, consider this: He practically doesnt shop anymore. He has successfully converted dressing up and photographing himself into a lucrative business. I read this article, which says that bloggers lose their personalities because theyre all sponsored, he shares. When Im asked [to wear clothing by a certain brand], I ask them if I could choose the pieces so theyre incorporated into my style. His associations are diversefrom the British prep-to-punk label Topman to the mass market department store section SM Youth. But hes willing to let some of his brands go as he prepares, this summer, to launch his own clothing line. I think its worth the risk, he says. Whats to lose anyway? Brands are now comfortable with seeing their clothes worn by endorsers with many other labels. It seems to be the obvious step after he graduates this coming term; that or doing PR, as if he hasnt been the PR wonder all throughout his college years, yet.

JP SINGSON

JP Singson has always been one to follow only the beat of his own drum. In a fashion industry landscape filled with overzealous magazine title ambassadors, he dared to work as a one-man team, a literal editor-at-large in the most prestigious fashion weeks throughout Europefrom the runways of Paris to the tents of Copenhagen. JP on Fashion Speed, his blog, which documents these adventures, includes tales of coming across rainy music festivals and, yes, even days as a European farm boy. He is a current-day Marco Polo. His coming home is marked not only by his toting new loot from faraway lands but also by the introduction of obscure brands and many pieces for his uniquely curated store, Unisex, an access offer to his androgynous style. The items are not the easiest to carry, and they demand a specific kind of confidence. With hard work and persistence, hopefully, the market becomes more open to new things, he says, having just opened this venture as an actual store, Unisex Rewind. Confidence is the most essential accessory to any outfit, continues Singson, daring in wearing mens heels (Rad Hourani, mind you) and comfortable in wearing draped garb in the tradition of Rick Owens and Damir Doma. Adding Seoul and Berlin to his fashion itinerary this year, he needs that forward cool and, of course, his fashion speed.
METRO

THE ADVOCATES
Ana Santos, Anna Oposa, and Mark Tan

THE NETIZENS
LISSA KAHAYON
Surprised at the influx of event invites, gifts, and collaborations, Lissa Kahayon is very conscious of how bloggers should deserve their positions. I think thats the reason I lasted for three years, she says, on her toes, in heels, which she sees to have become a superficial sign of doing the fashion blogging business and making it. Its not for everyone, she insists. Many do it because they think its about the events, freebies, and collaborations. I always tell them that they need to prove themselves. I started because Im so passionate about it. It has been a hot topic for print mediahow bloggers are earning their front row seats and brand enJUNE 2012

158

FEATURE
dorsementsbut marketing people and brand managers arent awarding it for nothing. Kahayon, with her 6,000 Twitter followers and her traffic of 10,000 clicks a day, is a person of influence. When she rises at 6:30 in the morning, her breakfast signals the start of her businesschecking out about 50 blogs bookmarked for information and inspiration. The rest of the day isnt even just dressing to be photographed in her signature shorts and dresses. She manages Love Vintage Manila, her own clothing brand and its online shop of reworked thrifted items. She worked for one of the countrys top stylists for about a year, so she sure knows her ropes in the industry. For whatever it means to be one of the top 20 blogs in the Philippines, shes earning it, and shes just acting herself. in Japan, thats when her organization Save the Philippine Seas was born. I always say that it was like a breakup, but worse because boys are replaceable; marine resources are not, she says. So while the former English major has been into theater for a decade, working with Repertory Philippines and Trumpets, she took the cause first, and she has so far been to 22 countries while advancing it. She was nominated by journalist Karen Davila as one of 11 Filipino Young Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum, and theyre now setting up libraries all over the Philippines. Last year, she was named by Yahoo! Philippines as one of its admirable Pitong Pinoy. The 24-year-old, who has been a diver since she was 15, is now a staunch protector of our seas, the center of marine biodiversity in the world. Im not antigovernment, anti-corporations, and anti-treehuggers. I try to work with all of them because I think we all move forward that way, she says, now involved even in legislation cases. Last month, she got the Future for Nature award in Netherlands and got 2.8M pesos to do her dream conservation project, a shark sanctuary. She is moving to Malapascua, Cebu to finish it in six months.

SAAB MAGALONA

Theres no denying the drama of being Saab Magalona, daughter to the hiphop legend Francis M, granddaughter to the iconic actors Pancho Magalona and Tita Duran, and siblings to a new generation of the familys actors and musicians. And while theres no camera following them around in the house, creative writing graduate Saab shares a lot through her blog, Spell Saab. Imagine sibling rivalry times the whole dramatic gene that we have, she says. Her sister Maxene has been in the entertainment business since the 90s, her brother Frank is getting into it with his fine arts background and an electronic music project on the side and, while other brother Elmo is making tweens scream for his singing and as part of a young love team. It is a blessing that shes living absolutely independent from them now. I like being in my own mess. I know where everything is, she says. Her life revolves around being an actor, taping her soap, My Beloved, and being an all-around indie scene girl at the same time. It is a busy but very simple life. For someone who was uncomfortable with people staring at them as a kid, she has bloomed into a sweetheart whos glad just to have her named spelled right on her coffee cup.

ANA SANTOS

JAYVEE FERNANDEZ

Jayvee Fernandez has been blogging for a decade, maybe even more, but unlike todays mostly clickthrough-motivated bunch, he now seeks a different kind of challenge. While there are only a handful of reputable tech blogs in the Philippines, he has chosen to break the optimization rule of sticking to one subject. Nowadays, his legendary blog, A Bugged Life, serves not only gadget reviews beyond the specs but also bits of his new passion as a scuba diver as well as occasional geekery about coffee. It may sound like a retirement plan, but Fernandez is not one to stop at this point. After co-founding BlogBank and Philippine Blog Awards (PBA) in 2007, deciding that the ad model is over after gaining 600 bloggers and now taking the backseat as PBAs new officers work on projects like Tech Tanod, social reporting for daily life, he just started working on ID8, an online publishing network tapping niches ranging from advocacy and travel. We need to retake our heritage as an island culture. We seem to be stuck up on malls, he says and jokes, I still want to make cats relevant online in the Philippines, but hes on a new level now. Well, that and publishing his photo of a cat on upcoming book by Mary Higgins Clark.

Ana Santos just accepted an international activist award in New York for the work in her online publication, Sex and Sensibilities, and personal blog, Happy Even After. Aside from being co-founder of Writers Block Philippines, she is also the Associate Editor of Illustrado magazine, and she long moved on from writing sex columns in mens magazines back in 2004. I always get that asset question, but Im not into that, she says. Im also not a Margie Holmes; shes got the pedigree for that. In the middle ground are women like her who simply need advice on relationship and self-esteem. It has been a difficult message to relay in a conservative country like the Philippines that she could already make a dictionary about her euphemismsknockin boots, getting to know each other in the biblical sense, the love glove. Sexual health advocacy has recently become a hotter topic because of the RH Bill debate, but Santos admits, I didnt have any strategic message. Dont let a hot date turn into a due date; its that simple. Things got real when a couple of friends became HIV positive and when her youngest niece became a mother at 14. Sex is the vehicle by which I send out my message. At the end of the day, I want young girls to have a dream for themselves, she says. All those old-fashioned things that your mother used to tell youyou work hard, you studythats the best form of contraception.

MARK TAN

THE ADVOCATES
ANNA OPOSA
I can say, with confidence, that the Philippines is the most beautiful country in the world, Anna Oposa proclaims, making her the perfect poster girl not only for promotion but also for environmental conservation. Having an environmental lawyer as a father, she was always taken to the mountains, and when a coral ransack case erupted as she was working for her dads office on a break from a leadership program
METRO

Before he became a marketing officer for Enderun Colleges, which aims to produce students competitive in the international field, Mark Tan was a journalist, so in 2007, he was asked to write about the advocacy group Yabang Pinoy. By the time he was done with the article, he himself has become a volunteer for the group. The job is to inject national pride into the Filipino lifestyle, especially to that of the younger generation. It simple took that assignment for him to be conscious that he can do more, and more he did. They have been going to schools to organize promotional events, to set up workshops, to facilitate seminars, and even to launch exhibits. In his beat as a former journalist, he has also helped launched the organizations magazine MAG YP, which has so far counted five issues. We think that until Filipinos need to be reminded that they need to be more Filipino in the way they think and what they do, then we will not stop. The reasons to be proud of natural resources and human values are everywhere, but the mind shift is their work. And while there is a general culture of criticism in media, they are on the side of optimism. One of their projects is the Global Pinoy Bazaar, which is organized for consumers to support local brands while they help the brands to feel like they are Filipino. The pride comes right away with their question: Anong maipagmamayabang mo bilang isang Pilipino?
JUNE 2012

159

Geof Gonzales, Aram Loe, and Darryl Recia of RabbitHole Creatives; and Karl Leuterio and Mike Magallanes of Paradigm Shift
METRO

THE POST-MODERNS
160
JUNE 2012

FEATURE
THE POSTMODERNS
PARADIGM SHIFT (KARL LEUTERIO AND MIKE MAGALLANES)
For Paradigm Shifts Karl Leuterio and Mike Magallanes, seasons are irrelevant. They dont bother with spring or fall colors and fabrics. All the clothes they make are simply what they fancy, possibly momentarily, but also easy to mix with their other collections pieces. There is always something new that they incorporate. This season, its mirrorlike textiles. The last time, it was a geometric study on cutting and draping. Oh, the number of ways a single piece of theirs can be worn! This is exactly the kind of possibility one can have whenever meeting the duo. One day, Mike is a modern-day warrior from Shibuya while Karl is an android from 2046. The next, Karl is Lady Gagas little monster designing shoes for the custom footwear label Gold Dot while Mike might as well be an Icelandic performance artist styling a runway show for Human. Their design decisions rely on a very simple question: Will I wear this? They design separately, and then comes the exciting process of fusing their ideaspossibly bipolarand only then does the search for materials begins. It makes brilliant answers to what-ifs. Down to the lookbooks, managing their online shop, and marketing it through their social networks, its a duo effort. Combining Magallanes industry know-how and the followers of Leuterios cult avant-garde fashion blog, Inkarlcerating, they have fueled the shift on whats possible to wear on the streets. may be considered waste. For example, she gets all the plastic cocktail stirrers from Manilas nightlife triumvirateRepubliq, Opus, and Priv. These she melted to produce a show of coral-like installations in Singapore. For these art objects, dAboville has used plastic nylon string, plastic spoons and cups dispensed as garbage but preciously saved for her ecological advocacy. She has worked with such established artists as sculptor Agnes Arellano, photographer Neal Oshima, and furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue. In June, she is flying to Paris for the biggest news of her career so far, to create for one of the designers in fashion week. She is also awaiting a big group show in the City of Lights in September.

JINGGOY BUENSUCESO

THE RABBITHOLE CREATIVES (GEOF GONZALES, DARRYL RECIA, AND ARAM LOE)

Two years ago, en route to a shoot, The Rabbit Hole Creatives car flipped over along the impossibly smooth SCTEX highway. It was obviously an accident, and no one was severely hurt, but if you look at their production design, styling, and makeup work for pre-nuptial shoots tailor-done for the most adventurous couples, youd see that they thrive even in conceptual accidents. That upside down car, in fact, could have been their instant set. The chaos theory of nature is in full swing our core, they say. They are improvised jazz. They are a cross-processed photo. They are, as the collectives name suggests, residents of Alices Adventures in Wonderlands rabbit hole. When they take the lead, couples open themselves to a thousand trickstheir shrinking to fill giant pink heels or to wear a blanket-length necktie, their weights suspension to ride a newspaper boat, a reunion with the dusty chest of their childhood toys. And yet the job isnt all wabi-sabi. The couples get to wear serious designer labels like Prada, Miu Miu, and Lanvin. The group frequently works with arguably Asias best wedding photographers, the MangoRed brothers, counting among their clients the model Sarah Meier and husband Banjo Albano, the actors Kristine Hermosa and Oyo Boy Sotto, from celebrities to advertising agency creatives. The business of love has never been quite the adventure.

I couldnt buy diamonds, Jinggoy Buensuceso cheekily says, so why not make my own wedding ring. His perfectly imperfect metal vow symbol is just one of his hardware constructionscounting a line of accessories, his painting that use metal sheets as canvases, and even furniture for the recent Manila FAME. Buensuceso is a hardcore creator that he designed even the pants hes wearing, and now, hes finishing the house of his dreamsa modern black house in Cavite, harboring his artists studio-gallery underneath. He was born to a family of artists in Bataan; his uncle, Rico Lascano, is a painter, and his brother is a violinist, some other relatives are graphic artists. Formerly based in Singapore, he recently came back with his wife Mutya, also his manager, and his little daughter, Mayumi. He has also been around the world, having held a show, Tryst, in Manhattan, and, for two years, lived there and Tokyo. All that vibe I absorbed, I used them as gasoline, inspiration to create something, Buensuceso says, his images full of masculinityfire, metal, weight. Some furniture pieces he made were supposed to be lamps but were too heavy to install that they were repurposed as planters. Last month, he showed this lamp decorated with ethnic braidsabaca fiber dyed to look like hair. Currently, Buensuceso is setting up his line of functional art.

NIKKI LUNA

THE ARTISTS
OLIVIA DABOVILLE
Island girl Olivia dAboville, raised between their home in Puerto Galera, their Manila base in Paraaque, and the city of Paris, specialized in textile. Her mother has a collection of fabrics from all over the Philippines; that includes those from the Mangyans they are supporting in Mindoro, but after finishing her Duperr education in textile, woven but flat, she ventured into the sculptural. Her first solo show, Chasm of Fantasies, put together with the grace of Nina Baker, the woman responsible for the curation of Ayala Museums fantastic gold relics, was presented last 2010. But instead of pulling materials out of nowhere, dAboville collects mass-produced objects, something that
METRO

Nikki Luna takes her art and life, the academe and the gallery, very seriously. A feminist, she became active when she did art workshops for families of the victims of the Maguindanao Massacre. I think Ive always had it in me, she says. I was just not able to funnel it the right way. In Lunas recent show, Menagerie of Bursting Lilies, an audio-visual installation incorporated with metal bars between the projection and the viewer. It was based on a letter given to her by a woman who had to struggle on her own in raising a child. Now taking her masters degree in Womens Development Studies at University of the Philippines, she brings art and advocacy together. She works on art programs for victims of armed conflicts and human rights violation. In Leaf Cuttings, she set up memorabilia of five women victimstwo of them missing because of doing what Luna does now in the conflict areas. She has done the same outreach to as far as Sierra Leone, alone, and she has put danger aside. She remembers her artist-in-residence period in New York: It makes you really aggressive, confident of what you want to do. Right after my New York stint, thats really when I went all-out with a lot of things. All she wants is to put the message across. In her upcoming show at the Lopez Museum, she is making more installations, and that includes real gold, soil, and bone china (like porcelain) about land and mining, only amplifying her voice of protest.

WATARU SAKUMA

When Wataru Sakuma was spending his time in the New York Studio Program, he hated design. He scoffed at students who took design, but in his last show as co-founder of the group Epoch Collaborations,
JUNE 2012

161

FEATURE
he presented lamps. Having lived in Dubai and India, aside from his homeland Japan, and having been a student of painting at the Memphis College of Art, he has now been living in Tagaytay. In Cebu, he started working in his furniture pieces together with other cross-culturally influenced artists. The one he made is a flexible lamp. I like to have options. Id like to be able to make my own shapes, and Im hoping that more people can relate to that feeling. They can experience a bit of the creative process, so they can enjoy it, he says, still very much leaning to his art background, which began with working on large-scale 5x5-meter paintings, inspired by expressionists like Pollock. Similar grains are still visible in his current work using paper. Japan has a long history of papermaking, which continues in his work in a paper factory, and he combines that with indigenous materials like pineapple and banana fibers. Yet instead of him simply drawing on it, he draws the paper out of pulpmaking webs, hives, and even maps. This September, he is having a show in Helsinki, 2012s design capital, to present pieces that incorporate weaving and the indigenous material capiz.

THURSDAY ROOM (ELDZS MEJIA, FOLD CANELA, SOLEIL IGNACIO, AND TOKWA PEAFLORIDA)

All the members of the Thursday Room collectiveEldz Mejia, Fold Canela, Soleil Ignacio, Tokwa Peaflorida, Kris Abrigo, Jill Adolfo, and Chi Jihanhave their own niches as independent creatives, but a lot of them work mostly in fashion. Mejia and fashion instructor Canela have been working together as a stylist-videographer duo. Former magazine art director Ignacio has worked with fashion publications and clothing brands. As a young bunch, they are hyperexposed to influences and are more daring to push new media. While there have been fashion films for a while, the group is putting its name out as it ventured into regularly making motion editorials for the local titlesthe first one they did initially available only for the iPad application of Metro. Chris Diazs Spring/ Summer 2012 video, which premiered during his show at Philippine Fashion Week, gained a lot of buzz. It is a collaborative effort of styling, art direction, editing, sound design, motion graphics, production design and illustration, which Thursday Room does, the same talents that went into the first locally produced television commercial for Keds sneakers. This season, Ignacio created prints for a designers upcoming collection. Theyve been doing a lot every month for different titles already, with plans of launching an online magazine soon.
METRO

162

JUNE 2012

Jinggoy Buensuceso; Soleil Ignacio, Tokwa Peaflorida, Fold Canela, and Eldzs Mejia of Thursday Room; Olivia dAboville, Wataru Sakuma, and Nikki Luna

THE ARTISTS
METRO

163

JUNE 2012