Beginning in Germany’s natural history museums, going through Norway’s stark landscapes, and grounded simultaneously in the Philippines and online, Alfred Marasigan’s project revolves around the duhol matapang, one of only two freshwater sea snake species in the world found only in Taal caldera’s lake. Shaped by the volcano’s strongest eruption in 1754, classified by colonial powers in the 19th century, and ultimately encountered by the artist in the anachronistic virtual realm, a particular Taal sea snake specimen’s story has become intertwined with Marasigan’s as well.

Initially in the form of email art and site-specific performance, Insurrection is the first gallery incarnation of Marasigan’s Taal sea snake project. As a homecoming show, it tackles his rekindled relationships with art and his newfound worldviews from studying in the arctic. Inspired by Norwegian slow tv, Marasigan employs livestreaming as a medium to reimagine our ties with time, space, imagery, and objecthood. How can we conjure narratives of history, gender, and self by convoluting time? Can art as storytelling, as alchemy, and as journey tame the wild present?

Alfred Marasigan is a visual artist from the Philippines. He recently graduated MA Contemporary Art from UiT Arctic University of Norway’s Tromsø Academy of Art and is a Norwegian Council of the Arts Grantee for Newly Graduated Artists. In 2015, he became a First Round Winner (General Category) of Art Olympia: International Open Art Competition in Tokyo, Japan, and in 2016, he had his first solo show in the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). He has worked as a lecturer in Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Fine Arts for four years, and is currently a full time faculty member.