All Stories

Everything we've published, newest first.

A gondolier steers passengers along a Venetian canal past faded orange palazzi

Heavy liquid: Milk of Dreams at the Venice Biennale

Surrealism, an emptied Russian Pavilion and a fountain smuggled out of Kyiv in a white Audi: the 59th Biennale, where the going gets weirder.

By Igan D'Bayan · May 16, 2022
A large, colorful hand-woven tapestry hanging inside the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

Backstage at the Biennale

Talking art with the curator and artists of the Philippine Pavilion over liters of Birra Moretti in the beautiful sinking city.

By Igan D'Bayan · May 9, 2022
Fiber artist Aze Ong stands beneath her sprawling white crochet installation, webbed panels and rings spanning the dark ceiling, one lacy length draped over her shoulder like a gown

Aze Ong weaves a tale of pain & transcendence

Chronic pain in the hands of a fiber artist who crochets for a living: Aze Ong on making her largest work yet for Art Fair Philippines.

By Igan D'Bayan · March 21, 2022
Portrait of Filipino author Miguel Syjuco leaning against a wall and looking at the camera

Miguel Syjuco & the ongoing war over who will tell the stories the world will know as true

The Ilustrado novelist on disinformation, power, and who gets to tell the stories the world will know as true, from a desk of literary detritus.

By Igan D'Bayan · March 14, 2022
Sepia collage of F. Sionil José: the smiling novelist in his black beret beside a marble bust of his likeness, layered over a scene of him at the typewriter and acacia branches overhead

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · January 8, 2022
In a black-and-white photo, guitarist Noli Aurillo bends low over his acoustic guitar, hair veiling his face, playing in a dim bar beside a microphone stand

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · October 25, 2021
Interior of the Philippine Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale featuring the wooden library structure and daily visitors

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · September 4, 2021
Painting of a grayscale young woman with a color anime-eyes panel collaged across her face, Ventura’s Doll Eyes

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · August 9, 2021
David Medalla in a grey flat cap, seen in profile in warm light, looking down at a book in a cluttered room

‘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.

By Igan D'Bayan · January 11, 2021
Cthulhu in a pinstriped suit swirls a cocktail in his listening room (turntable, orange speaker and record crates at hand) as the far wall opens onto a Bosch-like inferno crackling with pink lightning

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · August 29, 2020
Ronson Culibrina sits in his studio surrounded by sketches, brushes and vivid canvases

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · July 6, 2020
Painting Dark Smoke by Olan Ventura: a blue figure in a gas mask clutching its head before a mushroom cloud

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.

By Igan D'Bayan · April 19, 2020