A gallery’s new island residency in the Philippines focuses on sustainability and the local community

Photo: A view of Kopiat Island, home to Silverlens’s new artist residency. Courtesy of Neli Go. Retrieved from theartnewspaper.com.

Manila-based art gallery Silverlens is launching an artist residency on an island in the southern Philippines, where residents will use found materials to create public art installations.

The Lubi Art Residency takes its name from the Visayan word for coconut and is held at the Dusit Thani Lubi Plantation Resort on Kopiat Island in the Davao Gulf, which until the 1990s was largely agricultural. Artists will use materials from the island like driftwood, bamboo and debris washed ashore for installations that will be allowed to deteriorate over time, making their projects during the residency carbon-neutral.

“In Southeast Asia, our lives revolve around the environment: storms, earthquakes and volcanoes. There is respect for nature, because we are the first hit,” says Rachel Rillo, one of the gallery’s two co-owners. “Because we live in the islands, we know that nothing is permanent. Things will degrade, they will rot because of humidity and storms or the heat of the sun. Things will eventually return to nature.”

Using recovered materials from the island isn’t only carbon-neutral, it’s also pragmatic, minimising the need for costly shipping to and from the island. Silverlens selected artists who already use found objects as part of their practices, says Isa Lorenzo, the other co-owner. The first cohort of artists includes Corinne de San Jose, Gary-Ross Pastrana, Wawi Navarroza, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, Bernardo Pacquing and James Clar.