Dear Future Me brings together a collective of female artists exploring the intersections of identity, growth, and the ever-evolving self. Each artist is a vibrant voice in the conversation about self-discovery. Each piece acts as a letter to the future, filled with courage, creativity, and raw honesty.
Through bold colors, striking forms, and innovative techniques, these young visionaries reach out to their future selves, grappling with the dreams, aspirations, and challenges that lie ahead. This exhibition celebrates ambition, vulnerability, and the power of imagination—inviting you to join them on their journey of becoming.

What future do you see for yourself?

Exhibition Text by Chloe Magpayo

_______________________________

Pin Calacal’s work is anchored to the body as a theme and how it functions as a lens through
which she perceives relationships, identity, control, illness, death, movement, landscape, place
and belongingness. Her works often use anthropomorphism and images from nature as
metaphors in her works. She has also been exploring ideas related to being domestic and feral
and how these can be connected to the idea of place and one’s psyche.

Her focus on the body and other themes and concerns are not only present in the message and
imagery of her work but also in her processes and choice of materials and techniques. Calacal’s
works include drawings, paintings in acrylic, mixed media works on paper and objects made of
hair, textile, fabric and other things she gathers and collects.

Pin Calacal is a Manila-based Filipino artist. She graduated from the University of the Philippines
with a degree in Studio Arts (Painting) in 2015. Before studying art, she also studied at the Ateneo
de Manila University where she finished her studies in 2009.

Babylyn Geroche Fajilagutan’s (b. 1995, Iloilo City) practice revolves around materiality by using
paper. She is mostly interested in using found papers (e.g journal entries, children’s doodles,
school papers, old prints or left over scraps from past works) because of the markings and
memories these carry. She currently explores using thread with paper. For her, repetitively
sewing through the paper’s surface is like creating a direct relationship and confrontation with
the material. Apart from sewing, she also considers gluing, cutting, and tearing as important
processes in her works. Her exploration continues while also finding joy in playing with color,
texture, and shapes.

She earned her Bachelors degree in Fine Arts Major in painting from the University of the
Philippines, Diliman. Since 2019, she has been consistently exhibiting in group and solo exhibitions
in various art galleries in Metro Manila.

Christina Lopez is a visual artist based in Manila, Philippines. Her practice explores how images
are constructed, disseminated, and consumed. The work is often presented through different
media while utilizing production processes that range from old and “new”. She is interested in the
capacity of art to present alternative possibilities; to theorize, to test certain boundaries that are
currently in place. There is specific intent to explore power, including its relations, structure, and
implications. Recently, she has been using portraiture as a tool to question the rigidity of
representation. She has also been using popular horror and sci-fi tropes to produce imagery

that are simultaneously grotesque and glossy, in attempt to make connections between myth-
making and media superstructure. Her first solo exhibition titled “Portraits (Proxies)”, received the

Ateneo Art Awards – Fernando Zobel Prize for Visual Art in 2021. She has presented work in
Manila, Baguio, Lucban, Tokyo, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Taipei, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Busan,
London, and New York.

Zoraya Lua (b. 1985, Manila, Philippines) is a self-taught, cross-disciplinary practitioner with a
background in creative work for the natural sciences and multimedia production. She explores
ecology, memory, and technology through still and moving images, objects, and sound.
Informed by lived experience and nature-based philosophies, her practice reflects on spirit as
immanent and accessible within a living, dynamic world.

Based in Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines, she has presented work in Manila, Taipei, Bangkok, and
Singapore.

Lilianna Manahan finished her Foundation Studies in Art and Design at Central Saint Martins
School of Art and Design in 2004 and completed her BFA Industrial Design degree at the
University of the Philippines, Diliman.

In 2012, Lilianna began her own design practice under her own name. In 2014 she was awarded
as one of the six Rising Asian Talents at the first Maison et Objets Asia, and in 2018 shortlisted as
a nominee in the Ateneo Art Awards.

Her work has been described as alternately whimsical or industrial, tiptoeing between the line of
art and design. The study of process to highlight a craft and craftsman runs central in her
multidisciplinary work. In the past, her work had a range of materials but now is focusing on
metal, paper, and ceramic, sometimes doing the finishes herself. The size of her works and
installations run from the minuscule to large-scale. Her pieces pay attention to details, whether in
their functional or artistic elements.

Lilianna works and resides in Manila, Philippines.

Motivated by a genuine desire to be a healing force, Nara Marin‘s artworks showcase serene and
compassionate paintings acknowledging individual struggles. The uniformed girl with a hat,
whom she calls “Naneri,” is the protagonist of her stories. She personifies enlightenment and
empathy, evolving with distinct characteristics in each exhibit.

Nara is a Filipino contemporary artist who took up a Bachelor of Fine Arts major in Advertising
at the Technological University of the Philippines. She has been participating in group exhibitions
since 2009 in various notable galleries and museums, such as Pinto Art Museum, Secret Fresh
Gallery, Nunu Fine Art in Taipei and Yavuz Gallery in Singapore, among others.

Isha Naguiat (b. 1994) is a visual artist from Manila, Philippines. Her practice often incorporates
textiles, embroidery, and photography to explore themes of nature, memory, and home. She
graduated with honors from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, majoring in
Painting. Since then, she has held several solo exhibitions in the Philippines, participated in
numerous group shows, and completed an artist residency in Berlin, Germany. She currently lives
between Manila, Philippines and Bali, Indonesia.

Rhaz Oriente (b. 1992) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Manila whose work explores light,
memory, time, and perception through spatial and material interventions. Her practice engages
with reflective and transparent materials, such as glass, acrylic, gradients, and image-based
surfaces to examine how light shapes what we see, feel, and remember. Often minimal and quiet
in form, her works respond to their environment, subtly shifting with light, movement, or the
viewer’s presence.
Her process blends slow looking, emotional grounding, and intuitive research, drawing from
personal encounters, spatial shifts, and the way light marks time and place. She is curious about
how we relate to the moments and spaces we move through, and what remains after something
passes. Light, in her work, is not a medium but a condition something that reveals, flickers,
softens, or leaves.

She has exhibited at MO_Space, Finale Art File, West Gallery, and Balai Seni Maybank in Kuala
Lumpur. Her work has been featured in BusinessWorld, Cartellino, and SPOT.ph.

Matina Partosa studied painting at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts and
attended the New York Academy of Art Summer Undergraduate Program 2022. She has had a
solo exhibition at The Drawing Room Manila and participated in group shows at Blindspot
Gallery in Hong Kong and Modeka Art Space, Underground Gallery, Gravity Art Space, and
others in Manila.

She is currently engaged with painting as a vehicle to explore ideas of transience. When
deliberately translated into the material of paint, a spontaneous snapshot becomes a body that
ages yet endures, a passing moment that leaves behind a physical trace with a timeline
separate to that of its creator.

Maricar Tolentino (b. 1994) is a visual artist living in Antipolo City.

She does explorations with threads and fabrics. She uses this medium associated with
femininity and domesticity to narrate scenes from her everyday life, often drawing
imagery from urban Filipino culture.