I am an assistant professor at the Department of Art Studies in the College of Arts and Letters of the University of the Philippines Diliman, where I teach courses in art histories and arts management. My academic scholarship and cultural work practice revolve around the concepts of univerity heritage and modernities in the visual arts.
I have spearheaded and contributed to initiatives that dwell on "UP Diliman heritage"—from those that preoccupy themselves with objects of creative expressions to the kinds that present narratives that emanate from the voices of various members of the university community. From 2018 to 2020, I was involved in the University Collection Mapping Project where I was part of on-ground documentation of collections within the university and the development and publication of a book on the contours of the collections and the 35-volume digital catalog of objects within the project's scope. Later, I am tapped to head and be part of efforts to formulate and operationalize collections governance policies and guidelines within the university.
Contributing to the expansion of the notion of university heritage beyond the tangible, I have been part of exhibitions that present stories of placemaking and connectedness of various individuals and groups that comprise this community. In 2019 and 2024, exhibitions that commemorate the 70th and 75th anniversary of the university campus marked by the transfer of its most enduring icon, the Oblation statue, attempted to surface the perspectives from marginalized communities that complicate a unitary view of the university's history, amid—if not because of—the institutional role of the university heritage museum that hosted it.
In completion of my graduate degree in art history, I wrote a thesis that aimed at surfacing untapped narratives on practices of abstraction in painting in the country. I argued that foregrounding these practices' affinities with modernity, with its multilayered definitions, is a means to elaborate on the concept of the 'continuing modern.' I actively research and write about local practices of abstraction in relation to previously untapped concepts, such as spirituality, eschatology, outer space, and the university as a modern institution. I performed editorial work for the first volume of the official journal of the Department of Art Studies after its almost three decade hiatus, which centered on the theme of modernity and the arts.
As part of my extension service, I conduct heritage mapping, art and object handling, and exhibition making workshops and seminars across the regions.