This Art Exhibition Uniquely Showcases The Concept of “Kapwa”

As part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, Ayala Museum, with the gracious support of  Wilcon Depot, proudly presents Dambana ng Kapwa: Indigenous Spirituality as Resistance from Colonialism, an exhibition featuring works by Nueva Ecija-based visual artist Joshua Limon Palisoc. It is part of the museum’s public art program, OpenSpace, which began in 2015.

Photo: Ayala Museum/Joshua Limon Palisoc

This installation is a tapestry of animist, Hindu, Roman, and folk Catholic spiritual symbols that highlight the interplay between foreign and indigenous cultures and create a narrative of survival and resistance. Each sculpture is made of stainless steel wire frames encasing light-emitting diodes. The open work removes the wall between the labas and loob, the object and the viewer. 

The exhibition is grounded on the Filipino concept of kapwa, a state of shared existence and interconnectedness and treating another person as an extension of oneself. “This return to  Filipino spirituality reclaims our deep-rooted cultural identity that fosters community,  ecology, and authentic identity,” says Palisoc. 

The installation is set up like a dambana, a sacred space where the spiritual and material worlds intersect. The oval shape of the dambana references the balangay, a water vessel associated with indigenous cosmology, trade, and warfare. Small white stones surround the sculptures to emulate atang, traditional ritual rice offerings made to nature spirits and ancestors.  

The artist acknowledges that, although his art is initially shaped by personal experience, his struggles and desires are shared by many Filipinos. Dambana ng Kapwa offers “a communal  space for reflection, reclamation, and healing.” 

The dambana focuses on three major planes of existence—natural, social, and individual— each one represented by a pair of diwatas. The illumination is inspired by the ancient myth of Barangaw, the Visayan war god of the rainbow, and the Buddhist concept of chakra— specific areas of the body that are sources of psychic energies—by assigning each sculpture to a specific predominant color.

About the artist – Joshua Limon Palisoc

Born in 1990 and based in Nueva Ecija, Joshua Limon Palisoc graduated magna cum laude from the University of the Philippines, Diliman with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts, major in Visual Communication in 2016. He was part of the 2018 roster of mentees for Eskinita Art  Gallery’s TUKLAS program and the 2022 Espasyong Bayan Masterclass on site-specific public art organized by Linang Arts and Culture Network with Artists, Inc. and the NCCA. 

Photo: Ayala Museum

The artist has participated in numerous group exhibitions across various Philippine galleries and art spaces from 2013 to 2024, most notably participating in the Pinto Underwater  Sculpture Museum for Marine Ecosystem Regeneration, Currimao, Ilocos Norte. He has presented two solo exhibitions at the Pinto Art Museum, Antipolo, Rizal, and Ginabanal at the  2023 Manila’Bang Art Show under Art Anton Gallery. Palisoc has also exhibited internationally in the group exhibition Significant Otherness in Berlin, Germany, and as a SEA  Artist Feature at Tobian Art Gallery, Florence, Italy. He has been featured in international art aggregators like My Modern Met and Colossal. His body of work is characterized by human forms as vessels to explore themes such as identity, decolonization, and spirituality.