SWERTE

2025 | Pier-2 Art Center; Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts | Taiwan

**Materials:** Lottery scratcher tickets and acrylic on air-dry clay casts (white glue, talcum, paper pulp) of objects that interviewees brought to Taiwan from the Philippines, found luggage bag, vinyl text
**Dimensions:** Varies
**Date:** 2025
**Exhibited in:** Pier-2 Art Center and Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts

Through a combination of in-person and remote interviews, as well as online surveys, I engaged with Filipino migrants in Taiwan to uncover the reasons behind their departure from the Philippines and to document the objects they brought with them. In the mixed-media installation piece, swerte, personal belongings hold not only practical value in a new country but also deep emotional significance. Spilling onto the gallery floor from an open suitcase, the objects—recreated using paper, air-dry clay, and pigment—become vessels of memory and migration, speaking to the emotional and material realities of displacement.
I extend my deepest gratitude to each person who shared their profound insights that inspired the cast objects and vinyl texts, including Ysa Santos, Al Garcia, Maureen Betita, Nelson Punzalan, Carl Adrian Lim, John Marion Bañas, Gideon De Guzman, Khim O. Munda, John Paul Castillo Veneracion, the Manila Economic & Cultural Office (MECO) Kaohsiung, and others who request to remain anonymous.