About the Event
Christina Quisumbing Ramilo’s UNTITLED centers on the displaced functionality of selected and neglected found objects that linger in our households, in spite of their diminished presence and use. Phonebooks, the bible, a dictionary, documents and expired currency fill spaces in our lives regardless of their actual purpose. Like spectres of recent pasts, the pieces remain familiar though already outdated and obsolete.
An element of play is employed to the anonymity of these items that stem from the changing times. Paper, the underlying thread that ties all the works together, is made to go through a physical transformative process of deconstruction and construction, destruction and creation. Books, sheets and pages are shredded to its pulp then meticulously and tediously put back together. Its segments are reconfigured to its original state with merely traces of indecipherable text.
A series of drawn impressions are paired to these objects. Spontaneously imprinted, each stroke extend from the nondescript markings found in the deconstructed pages. This time, as it emerges from the artist’s own hand and subconscious, the drawings remain indistinct and scrawled.
With titles, forms, words and images left only as clues, it imparts glimpses into the value that was once held. A form of palimpsest, there persists a sense of nostalgia for these objects but also confronts emancipation from its previous contexts and significance.