Abraham Ambo Garcia JR is a Davao-based Filipino PhD candidate in the visual arts. He is doing
photography as an artform with expanded practice in painting, papermaking, printmaking, and
craft. His current works concern with the evolving identity of the Filipino-Australians, which
reconnect him back to local, regional, and historical contexts.
The body of works in OASES explores and revisits the ideas of being a Filipino that signify leaving
and living home. His ongoing studio research takes him to meet different waves Filipino migrant
families in Queensland through his Santa Rosa Project initiative, where he became a participant
observer to their everyday and celebratory lives.
His works are visual conversations on the Deleuzian concept of the fold; reflections on the Filipino
spirituality and salawikain (proverbs) on resilience; and metaphors on the Philippine’s
transcultural intersections of being itinerant. And he looks at exemplars in art practices that uses
photographic images, or make-do material manipulation, or works exploring the lateral flux of
identity.
The studio research proactively addresses and cultivates a primary audience where the exhibition
occurs, and the latter are treated as companions on this creative process. This is done by reaching
out to business establishments where the Filipino-Australian families converge to satisfy their
intangible cravings of home.
OASES has been exhibited at the POP Gallery in March and as an abridged version at the Glass Box
in April.
