Two-Artist Show at Calle Wright Explores Precarious Futures

The exhibition 'and land erodes into' at Calle Wright in Manila, running through 13 October, pairs Singaporean artist Fyerool Darma and Filipino artist Nice Buenaventura to examine humanity's uncertain future amid climate change, political crises, and digital saturation. Darma's installation 'Screenshot 11-03-2023 at 03:03 PM (philhuat 2GO)' (2023) features amorphous black stickers and digital prints, while his video 'Poietics of Pantun/pantoum/tuntun/tanaga' (2021–) mimics a smartphone interface with reinterpretations of social media sites like Spotify, Zoom, YouTube, Google, TikTok, and Facebook, incorporating robotic figures referencing Malay pantun and Filipino tanaga. Buenaventura's 'Gaian Assembly XV' (2023) laser-engraves a plywood sheet based on Dean C. Worcester's colonial map from 'The Philippine Islands and Their People' (1898), distorting cartographic precision to critique border-making in the Philippines' colonial history under Spain, Britain, the United States, and Japan, and ongoing tensions with China over the West Philippine Sea. Her video 'Rocks scattered by the last breaths of the Pacific' (2023) captures Pacific waters during typhoons, highlighting shared vulnerabilities of Pacific islands to climate change. The show juxtaposes Darma's digital disconnectedness with Buenaventura's natural world, reflecting the Philippines' reality as the country with the highest social media usage per capita in 2021 while facing some of the strongest typhoons.