“Reading Bautista’s passages and knowing it came from one of his earlier works spoke to the primal instinct of my heritage. I felt the frustration of being lost, just as he eloquently shared
the experience in his text.
Before knowing I was assigned The Archipelago, I was preparing myself for Bautista’s more political bodies of work, but I’m thankful for exploring his interpretation of a part of Filipino history. It fueled
my drive to create my own expression, after not being able to do so for so long.”


“My visual interpretation coincides with the broken-linear storytelling that I got while studying his poetic vernacular. It shows the story of a person that lives in a manifested chaos inevitable within the metro. They only find clarity by returning to the roots of our heritage – nature and simplicity.
The auditory element of my art is to offer pieces of personal history. I included a QR code that directs you to an existing Playlist I was listening to on Spotify. This will help the viewer experience moments in time when I was making the specific spread.”
“The only challenge I had was confidence. Before this zine, I neglected to create purely for self expression for several years. A part of myself was repressed, and it took a while to unearth that comfortability to meet material with paper again.
I was the last to finish from the list of artists that Sir Torres collected to be part of this project, so that gives you an idea on how much digging and bouncing in and out of quitting I had to endure. But it was worth it.”

after shutting myself out of it for so long.
“I think for the most part it was the lack of art materials, and the lack of funding
for art materials. I had to make do with what I had.There is still that feeling
of paralyzing unproductivity, so there were days where I really had to step out
and absorb my surroundings (from a safe distance.)”