On 12 September 2026, just a day before the group exhibition “Paglungtad” closes, the three artists Czar Vergantiños, Kaith Pelicano, and Gertrelle Sumicad perform their individual art pieces in front of an audience of artists, students, and guests of Mugna Gallery.
At the Mugna Gallery parking lot Czar Vergantiños laid out a new floorplan based on his work “There Is No Door Into This House.” He did not lay out a room of his family house as was shown in his series of 36 photos. He described that series as “finished, all the rooms have been done” which brought up the question of home. On the grounds of Mugna Gallery he laid out the floorplan of the studio he shared with his fellow artists of Paglungtad and Frame x Frame. The map was riddled with rectangles and squares indicating the tables they occupied in that studio during their time at Silliman University.
Kaith Pelicano occupied the basement floor of Mugna Gallery. Her skin painted a bright pink, donned in her black dress and orange soccer-shoe-made-bodice, wearing the head of a bug, she walked, posed, danced like a mantis or spider as music filled the small intimate space. She described her works as a method of breaking the stereotypes she was forced into by portraying these stereotypes to the extreme. It is a form that has evolved into a monster—a creature with power and need for domination.
On the main floor of Mugna Gallery, Gertrelle Sumicad, carrying her Guitar and Soundboard, performs her songs in her video series “Adlaw–Adlaw.” The songs reference Gen-Z humor mixed in with Visayan Humor and is ultimately a comedic and satirical take on the experiences of living in repetitions and routines and solely for the purpose of survival. In between her songs, as an interlude, she tells a series of stories within the dormitories she has lived in. She ended her performance with a song she had not included in her series—a song that took more of a wholesome tone over her usual comedy. In the song, she implored her viewers to simply go out and live in the world with the people in it.
The Paglungtad Performance Series were the first time these three artists shared their process to a larger audience. These performances were once private or seen through casual moments in the public, never as a moment meant to be observed and consumed. The series brought out new meaning, as each artist shared at the end of the performance series. Along with it, the artists shared where they hope their art takes them as they take their first steps into the contemporary art world.
