A word that means “stage,” TARIMA comes from 14 contemporary artists who display a particular narrative sensibility in terms of both the figurative and the abstract. Shedding the common tendency to use arbitrary elements for compositional and decorative purposes, the artists here focus on how they can set up the stage for the stories that lie beneath everyday experience.

Keb Cerda’s “The reason why nobody likes Billy Tsonka’s strawberry dirty ice cream” offers its own playful rendition of the urban legend behind “dirty ice cream,” merging Filipino culture and Western influence in one stroke. Jesus Genotiva’s “Panaginip Lumang Panaginip (Dreams Old Dreams)” represents man’s constant struggle against his senses and the stimuli of the day to day; the artist turns this into a mythologized landscape that narrates an odyssey. Joselito Jandayan’s “Romancing the Beast” looks at blurring the lines between man’s human and animal aspects in the mold of a love story. Ronald Jeresano shows that there is hope when all things seem darkest in “Dark Night,” whereas Teody Racuya’s “Transfer Affection” is a throwback to our collective notion of a simpler time; of the innocence and joy of childhood.

Together, the artists invite themselves, as maker, and the audience as interpreter, to construct and extract from the stage: to experience how stories can be told and unfold.