The Aesthetics of Kapwa

The Aesthetics of Kapwa
Illustration
2025

see Majin Magazine issue 2

For the second issue of Majin Magazine, Assi Abogado produced a diptych in response to Carl Cervantes’ essay on pakikipagkapwa. The first work reconfigures the sacred T’nalak dreamweave, layering its patterns with digital traces of Manila’s urban sprawl and references to the Angono Petroglyphs, reflecting on the fragmentation of Filipino spiritual cosmologies under colonial and Western influence.

The second work reimagines a Filipino figure in a posture reminiscent of the Manunggul Jar, enveloped by an omniscient, animistic presence suggestive of ancestral consciousness—one that has been partially obscured by the historical dominance of Catholicism. Together, the works examine how kapwa persists within the Filipino cultural subconscious, questioning whether it remains an enduring tether to collective memory or a fading trace of precolonial relationality.