Melvin Culaba’s INDOGTRINATION uses wordplay and observation to explore the programmed obedience and unchecked loyalty that define much of contemporary Filipino life. Centering the dog, as both metaphor and mirror, Culaba dissects how power is upheld by blind followers, broken systems, and the absence of critical thought.

Referencing everything from political taglines and infrastructure failures to cult-like devotion and media misinformation, each work in the exhibition is loaded with layered critique. Pieces like “A Dog Tail Tells Tales”, “Asong-Bahay”, and “It Takes More to Tatango-TANG-GO” combine humor and heaviness, inviting the viewer to laugh, then look closer.

Culaba draws from personal history and urban realities. His panoramic view from home becomes a lens into a society where even the dogs know where to “shit,” but the people in power do not. This is an exhibition about control, complicity, and the truths we choose to overlook.

Melvin Culaba is a Filipino visual artist known for his incisive social realist works that confront issues of injustice, corruption, and systemic inequality. A graduate of the University of Santo Tomas (BFA, 1993), his career spans decades of committed, politically engaged artmaking. Culaba has held solo exhibitions in the Philippines and Singapore, and was awarded a full grant residency at the Vermont Studio Center, USA, in 2005. His practice remains a powerful critique of structures that shape everyday life.