Disorder (2019)
Exhibition: City of Bawal
Dates: April 27, 2019 – June 8, 2019
Curator: Roy Voragen
Location: 1335 Mabini, Manila, Philippines
Exhibiting Artists: Lesley-Anne Cao, Miggy inumerable, Czar Kristoff, Celine Lee, Cris Mora, Indy Paredes, Mark Salvatus, Jel Suarez, Isola Tong
The assemblage of modular frames, resembling the haphazard arrangements of Manila's civic scaffolding, interrogates the fraught urban dynamics of Manila, a city shaped by both rigid structures and instability. The work draws from the ephemeral configurations of steel frames, demolition sites, and decaying infrastructure, translating these encounters into wooden cube modules held together by cotton strings. This aleatoric process of assembly mirrors the precarious equilibrium between imposed order and organic chaos: an anti-monument that monumentalizes the contingent and informal qualities of an emergent metropolis under an entropic neoliberal governance.
Edward Soja’s concept of Thirdspace provides a critical lens for understanding this urban condition, where space is not merely a static backdrop but an active field of power, resistance, and lived experience. As Soja asserts, “Spatiality is simultaneously perceived, conceived, and lived. It is a materialization of social relations, a medium and outcome of power, a site of struggle, and a space of resistance.” In City of Bawal, these tensions manifest in the myriad prohibitions that govern public life: no loitering, no jaywalking, no parking, while the everyday realities of the city overflow with transgressions that subvert these restrictions.
Aesthetically and conceptually inspired by the Japanese architectural movement Metabolism, the project situates itself within this paradox, embracing the inherent disorder that emerges within structured environments. The unpredictable arrangements highlights the friction between constraint and adaptation, control and defiance. It gestures toward a stuttering, emergent urbanity—one that resists absolute definition, opening itself up to new and perplexing possibilities.
Reference:
https://www.1335mabini.com/city-of-bawal
