To live is to exist within a world of systems, structures, and power. It is around life itself and affects how one moves and speaks. The artists within Paglungtad all create artworks that revolve around social topics such as gender performance and patriarchy, controlled and surveilled spaces, and the repetition of the everyday. The reality of living within these systems is how they inform and contextualize the gestures of every artist. They reveal how context finds itself in art practice as methods of response.
Kaith Pelicano proposes the evolution of women into creatures that hold power. The figure she imagines references matriarchal creatures. With the control over identity constraining every individual regardless of gender, destruction and recreation become necessary—to break these systems of oppression and control and, from its ashes, create anew.
Czar Vergantinos uses the floorplan as a gesture of reclaiming spaces. When spaces are owned, they enforce identities, control bodies, and dictate language. The floorplans draw attention to the artist performing this gesture of reclamation. Briefly, ownership of space is given back to the artist, and the ownership of their own identity. Within controlling spaces, there is an intimacy to creating liberated spaces that allow for identities to be lived free from the constraints of expectation and surveillance.
Gertrelle Sumicad satirizes the everyday—the routine tasks, repeated activities, and the methods used to distract from the mundane. She exaggerates these actions and draws attention to boring moments to entertain the viewer. She points a spotlight on the repetition of the everyday and offers the viewer the opportunity to laugh at the very thing they are living.
The artists of Paglungtad, like those viewing the exhibition, live within these systems, structures, and realities. That is the inclusion of existence, but along with it is the creation of art that is contextualized by them. Even to those who do not seek to highlight social topics, context exists. It exists in every creative gesture because every day it affects how one lives and how whole populations live, yet we continue to exist within it still, and more so, create art within it.
By Czar Vergantiños
CZAR VERGANTÑOS is a multidisciplinary artist based in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. His practice varies along a number of media such as Traditional Media (Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Murals, and Graffiti), New Media (Video, Text, Glitch, and Digital Spaces) while also creating Zines and Comics for both his personal essays and fiction writing. His art practice and research is rooted in the deeper observations of the everyday—looking into systems, power, environment, and identity. His recent artworks and research started with the observation of how bodies move along spaces, developing into the question of how identity, movement, and language is formed and controlled by the spaces occupied by the individual, highlighting the relationship of individuals to power. His recent artworks dwell in this desire for liberated spaces and the hope to create spaces that allow such freedoms. Vergantiños completed his Bachelor in Fine Arts at Silliman University where he engaged in a range of art exhibitions and art fairs such as the Silliman University Xerox Xerox Lang Zine and Print Fair (2023–2026) as well as, co-curating and managing Suki 2025: Lugar Lang Art Exhibition (2025) at the Romeo Ariniego Art Gallery, and facilitating zine workshops such as Paglampos (2024) at the National Museum of the Philippines–Dumaguete for Women’s Month and art activities and workshops with Dakila Dumaguete for Active Vista Human Rights Festival (2025–2026).
KAITH PELICANO is an artist based in Cebu, Philippines. She finished her Bachelor’s degree in fine arts, majoring in studio arts at the Silliman University in Dumaguete city, Negros Oriental. Her recent works experiments with different materials to create sculptures and mix media works. Creative Photography and Videography are skills she is also exploring to create conceptual based artworks. Her interest in philosophical topics fuels ideas for her pieces, with her recent body of work exploring the idea of gender and what it means to be a woman.
GERTRELLE SUMICAD is a visual artist and musician based in Bonifacio, Misamis Occidental, Philippines. She recently earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts, major in Studio Art degree from Silliman University. Her practice involves videography, photography, and song composition to make satirical videos. In those videos, the mundane is the focal point of every joke. Taking inspiration from internet shit posts which are low-effort or nonsensical pieces of content shared online. Her videos explore the repetitive nature of the mundane and how spaces dictate what our norm may be. Gertrelle’s work is a contradiction of ideas that invite viewers to be hyper aware about existence while simultaneously detouring them in forms of entertainment.
To live is to exist within a world of systems, structures, and power. It is around life itself and affects how one moves and speaks. The artists within Paglungtad all create artworks that revolve around social topics such as gender performance and patriarchy, controlled and surveilled spaces, and the repetition of the everyday. The reality of living within these systems is how they inform and contextualize the gestures of every artist. They reveal how context finds itself in art practice as methods of response.
Kaith Pelicano proposes the evolution of women into creatures that hold power. The figure she imagines references matriarchal creatures. With the control over identity constraining every individual regardless of gender, destruction and recreation become necessary—to break these systems of oppression and control and, from its ashes, create anew.
Czar Vergantinos uses the floorplan as a gesture of reclaiming spaces. When spaces are owned, they enforce identities, control bodies, and dictate language. The floorplans draw attention to the artist performing this gesture of reclamation. Briefly, ownership of space is given back to the artist, and the ownership of their own identity. Within controlling spaces, there is an intimacy to creating liberated spaces that allow for identities to be lived free from the constraints of expectation and surveillance.
Gertrelle Sumicad satirizes the everyday—the routine tasks, repeated activities, and the methods used to distract from the mundane. She exaggerates these actions and draws attention to boring moments to entertain the viewer. She points a spotlight on the repetition of the everyday and offers the viewer the opportunity to laugh at the very thing they are living.
The artists of Paglungtad, like those viewing the exhibition, live within these systems, structures, and realities. That is the inclusion of existence, but along with it is the creation of art that is contextualized by them. Even to those who do not seek to highlight social topics, context exists. It exists in every creative gesture because every day it affects how one lives and how whole populations live, yet we continue to exist within it still, and more so, create art within it.
By Czar Vergantiños
CZAR VERGANTÑOS is a multidisciplinary artist based in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental. His practice varies along a number of media such as Traditional Media (Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, Murals, and Graffiti), New Media (Video, Text, Glitch, and Digital Spaces) while also creating Zines and Comics for both his personal essays and fiction writing. His art practice and research is rooted in the deeper observations of the everyday—looking into systems, power, environment, and identity. His recent artworks and research started with the observation of how bodies move along spaces, developing into the question of how identity, movement, and language is formed and controlled by the spaces occupied by the individual, highlighting the relationship of individuals to power. His recent artworks dwell in this desire for liberated spaces and the hope to create spaces that allow such freedoms. Vergantiños completed his Bachelor in Fine Arts at Silliman University where he engaged in a range of art exhibitions and art fairs such as the Silliman University Xerox Xerox Lang Zine and Print Fair (2023–2026) as well as, co-curating and managing Suki 2025: Lugar Lang Art Exhibition (2025) at the Romeo Ariniego Art Gallery, and facilitating zine workshops such as Paglampos (2024) at the National Museum of the Philippines–Dumaguete for Women’s Month and art activities and workshops with Dakila Dumaguete for Active Vista Human Rights Festival (2025–2026).
KAITH PELICANO is an artist based in Cebu, Philippines. She finished her Bachelor’s degree in fine arts, majoring in studio arts at the Silliman University in Dumaguete city, Negros Oriental. Her recent works experiments with different materials to create sculptures and mix media works. Creative Photography and Videography are skills she is also exploring to create conceptual based artworks. Her interest in philosophical topics fuels ideas for her pieces, with her recent body of work exploring the idea of gender and what it means to be a woman.
GERTRELLE SUMICAD is a visual artist and musician based in Bonifacio, Misamis Occidental, Philippines. She recently earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts, major in Studio Art degree from Silliman University. Her practice involves videography, photography, and song composition to make satirical videos. In those videos, the mundane is the focal point of every joke. Taking inspiration from internet shit posts which are low-effort or nonsensical pieces of content shared online. Her videos explore the repetitive nature of the mundane and how spaces dictate what our norm may be. Gertrelle’s work is a contradiction of ideas that invite viewers to be hyper aware about existence while simultaneously detouring them in forms of entertainment.
