All Stories
Everything we've published, newest first.
The solitary saga of Manong Frankie
‘When you write,’ Manong Frankie said in a voice that could fell ancient trees, ‘it’s not just with words.’ There is a trail of a life in every word.
The day the music died
Goodbye to the late, great Noli Aurillo, who chanted ‘Au au au!’ to the room before conjuring magic with a deck of cards or one guitar.
Philippines wins historic first award at Venice Architecture Biennale
Curators Khadka and Furunes take a Special Mention for “Structures of Mutual Support,” the Philippines’ first-ever Venice Biennale award.
Ronald Ventura’s hyper-realist Olympics
Two Tokyo shows timed to the Olympics: Ronald Ventura on anime eyes, emoji as language, and a reality we can no longer tell from the cartoon.
‘David Medalla has left us to enter the dream’
Trying to encapsulate David Medalla in one article is like reducing eternity to an hour. His partner and friends attempt it anyway.
Audio Inferno: Or how I learned to stop worrying and love ‘Best Audiophile Voices Vol. 4’
Bass traps, butcher blocks and a Doberman named Lucca: how to make a small room sing without selling a kidney for the privilege.
Ronson Culibrina’s monsoon madness & rainbow spills
Talim Island boyhood, an outrigger’s balancing arm and a witch under a weather-map umbrella: Ronson Culibrina paints the temper of the times.
Galleria Pandemia: Art in the Time of COVID
Ruiz, Ocampo, Miel, Borlongan and Justiniani on what the lockdown did to their practice, and why art is the last thing out of Pandora’s jar.
Art, The Day After
Written from inside the 2020 lockdown: what a random Tuesday will taste like again, and why art does not thrive in the bleakest of moments.
A flood of words, water & wonder at the closing ceremony of the Venice Art Biennale
As the Biennale closes, Mark Justiniani’s mirrored “Island Weather” seems to ripple out of the Philippine Pavilion into the flooding lagoon city.
Houses of Wax and Other Hits
Vinyl resurgence, my ass. Digging through Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam and Budapest for the record you did not know you were looking for.
The Art of War in the House of the Rising Sons
De Niro, Pacino, and a neighborhood video store ran by a balding guy we called the Caterpillar. Notes on a boyhood measured in VHS tape.