The concept of care is instinctual; it extends extrinsically and creates interconnectedness between ourselves and our experiences. In medical anthropology, Taylor (2008) argues that “recognition is inseparable from ‘caring’, and both can be understood as not just the interior emotional or intellectual states of individuals, but as practices, particular forms of activity, at once social, representational, and very concretely material.” Relating to care ethics, Garett (2007) emphasizes the idea of “web of relationships” over independent individualism. Such ideas suggest that both our being and our ability to care are shaped by diverse interconnected influences and contexts.

“About the patience of ordinary things” reflects on the concept of care in relation to aspects of everyday life through artistic expressions. The exhibit title comes from Pat Schneider’s 2005 literary work titled “The Patience of Ordinary Things” which acknowledges the nature of an individual object as itself together with its relation with other materials. The participating artists with their own practices render various gestures and materialities as part of the exhibition’s probing towards the concept of care.

How does one perceive and express care through the use of objects and practices which inform such interconnections in the everyday? The exhibition proposes to reexamine care as an instrument that propels complex and fluid interconnectivities and capabilities through reflective, artistic, physical, and metaphorical expressions.

– Curated by Alain Zedrick Camiling and Gian Carlo Delgado

About the curators:

Alain Zedrick Camiling currently leads the BA Creative Industries Management Program (formerly Arts Management) at the De La Salle- College of Saint Benilde and has served as researcher and faculty at University of the Philippines Baguio. His written work has been published on diverse platforms including Art Basel and Asian Contemporary Art Project (France). He is co-curator for the sole Philippine entry to Prague Quadrennial of Performance Space and Design (2023) in Czech Republic and curator for Philippine Embassy in Rabat’s Kinabuhi exhibition in Morocco (2022). His academic training is on art education and curatorial studies.

Gian Carlo Delgado is an educator, writer, and museum worker from Manila. He graduated cum laude from the University of the Philippines with a degree in Art Studies (Interdisciplinary) in 2017. He is taking his MA in Art History at the same institution. He works as a museum researcher, part of the curatorial team of the UP Vargas Museum, and is a lecturer at the Ateneo de Manila University Fine Arts Department. He has published research works and feature reviews for various publications, such as Artplus, Purveyr, and the Katipunan Journal. Delgado received the 2022 Purita Kalaw-Ledesma Prize for Art Criticism (Filipino Category).