Project 14
Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country
22 June - 25 August 2012
Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto: Mark Gowing
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto: Mark Gowing
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists
- Click To PlayPlay Video
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyVideo courtesy Das Platforms
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Pinnaces Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy the artists and Pinnacles Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Tweed Regional Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy Tweed Regional Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Tweed Regional Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy Tweed Regional Gallery
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012
(installation view, Tweed Regional Gallery, 2014)Used transport cardboard boxes, packing tape, handcrafted cardboard houses, makeshift drums and sound, single channel video projection (The Badjao (Southern Philippines), 5:07 min) plus 5 LCD screen installations
dimensions variable
Commissioned by Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, SydneyPhoto courtesy Tweed Regional Gallery
- Installing In-Habit: Project Another Country at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery
- Click To PlayPlay Video
You might be forgiven for thinking that someone has a lot of time and cardboard on their hands when you visit In-Habit at Bathurst Regional Gallery. And you wouldn’t be wrong. Indeed many hours and a whole lot of boxes go into the installation of this mammoth touring project. In-Habit, like Rome, was not built in a day.
The cardboard walls of this metropolis are constructed entirely from recycled cardboard boxes, sticky tape, toothpicks, paper and glue — a project which has art climbing the walls from floor to ceiling in each of the gallery spaces in order to build this magical monstrous-city.
Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan: In-Habit: Project Another Country is a Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation commissioned project, toured by Museums & Galleries of NSW. This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
Alfredo Juan Aquilizan & Isabel Gaudinez-Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country, 2012Location Photographs, Badjao Community Seaside II, Barangay, Matina Aplaya, Davao City, Philippines
Photo: Alfredo Juan Aquilizan
In-Habit: Project Another Country intertwines two stories of displacement and resilience of the Badjao, or ‘sea gypsies’, in the Philippines. The first refers to the Badjao’s precarious stilt settlements that evolve and expand in response to the vagaries and vicissitudes of life on the edge. In the SCAF gallery space, a cacophony of mismatched removal boxes becomes an improvised shanty town, supported by steel scaffolding that stretches from floor to ceiling. The cardboard condominiums proliferate as local children and other visitors create and contribute over the course of the exhibition.
The second explores the severely underprivileged but quick-witted Badjao children. Trapped by circumstance in a life of limbo, they have learnt to increase their takings as beggars by infusing foreign rap music with local dialect. The Aquilizans filmed the children’s spontaneous and humorous routines on the streets of Filipino cities.
Though outwardly diverse, the two stories share overriding themes of displacement and temporality, adaption and resilience.
Edited extract from Felicity Fenner’s catalogue essay, ‘Tallstoria’.
This exhibition is on tour 2013 – 2015 with Museums & Galleries NSW and supported by Visions Australia:
Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, NSW
Penrith Regional Gallery and the Lewers Bequest, NSW
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, NSW
Pinnacles Gallery, QLD
Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia, SA
Also shown internationally at:
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan – 3 August – 10 November 2013