Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan in ArtAsiaPacific

11 Jan 2022

“Heritage is never innocent. It signifies a partial and idealized past, designating some items as worthy of preservation at the expense of others. How can we critically reassess the process of heritage-making, and how do we invent new ways to preserve marginalized pasts?”

Cassie Liu from ArtAsiaPacific examines Poetic Heritage at Tai Kwan Contemporary, posing a question of reinvention on heritage-making. The exhibition evaluates critical and creative relationships between heritage and contemporary art through the works of six artists/artist groups. Each provides a fresh perspective of neglectable waste salvaged as objects of cultural importance, essentially expanding on notions of heritage.

Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan’s work Passage III: Project Another Country (2009) convey migrant, diasporic, or displaced community experiences left unrecorded or actively excluded from dominant global historical narratives. A towering boat-shaped sculpture composed of cardboard shanties coalesce with a series of small photographs of the shoreline, forged a symbolic mobile settlement for people searching for a sense of belonging.

The exhibition Poetic Heritage was displayed between 2 September – 21 November 2021 at the Tai Kwan Contemporary in Hong Kong.