The Aesthetics of Kapwa
Illustration
2025
see Majin Magazine issue 2
For Majin Magazine’s 2nd issue, I created a diptych reflecting Carl Cervantes’ essay on Pakikipagkapwa. The first piece distorts the sacred T’nalak dreamweave, layering it over digital remnants of Manila’s sprawl and the Angono Petroglyphs—echoing the fragmentation of Filipino spirituality under Westernization.
The second reimagines a Pinoy figure in a Manunggul Jar-like posture, enveloped by an omniscient, animistic presence—an ancestral gaze nearly eclipsed by Catholicism. Through these works, I interrogate how kapwa lingers in our cultural subconscious, questioning whether it remains a tether to our roots or a fading specter of what once was.