At 8:30 am yesterday morning, I was hovering over the clouds and approaching the airport that would take me back home. The screen was set to the flight map where I could see the blinking text that read the name of where I grew up. My heart started pounding and I grew excited at the thought of sleeping in my childhood bedroom after a month of moving quite often and sleeping in different places.
Exactly 10 years ago I left Manila to attend grad school without an inkling that I would spend the next years of my life neither here nor there, and having to thrive off the memory of the familiar. I spent most of January 2023 in Virginia, at the Oakspring Garden Foundation where I was able to meet a writer who shared that he was only able to write about his home when he had left it. I found myself thinking that I was exactly the same way.
I started my project Fertility Flowers in 2019 yet it took years to come to fruition, fermenting itself slowly within other experiments I had been doing in the studio. It has been exhibited in several iterations in the past years yet this upcoming exhibition feels particularly special to me because it marks the 10th year of living as an immigrant. Only through missing home was I able to create this special world and immerse myself in the historical narratives of the flowers I would dearly miss seeing, and begin to recreate the narratives to reflect a portion of myself.
So it is with immense pleasure that I am invite you to my solo exhibition in Manila this coming Friday, on February 10 from 3:00 - 8:00 pm.
Hope to see you there!
All the best,
Goldie
I could not have done this work without the help of so many wonderful people and institutions that have believed in this project through the years. Thank you to Danni Shen for jumpstarting this piece and giving me the platform to show in 2021. Thank you to the Foundation of Contemporary Art in NY, 601Artspace , Urban Glass and Brooklyn Glass . Thank you to the entire Fertility Flowers film team - Tony Battung, Sasha Palomares, Slo Lopez, Abby Alcanzare, Bianca Francisco, Apa Agbayani . Thank you to the Oakspring Garden Foundation for providing me with the space and support to create my work. Thank you to the staff at OSGF for recommending books that inspired new glass techniques , for feeding me and supporting me while I made the newest pieces for this show. Thank you to Stephen Dee Young and the team of 87 Ludlow street who graciously provided me with studio and exhibition space which allowed me to pack and curate pieces for this show.
Most especially thank you to my husband Joseph Sousa and to my sales director Apa Agbayani for the assistance and mental support through this tedious process.