Current/s of Exchange: Art Ecologies between the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan
Panel Discussion
November 26 (Wednesday) | Starts at 1:00 PM
Aldaba Hall, University Theater, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City
Admission to this event is FREE.
The Japan Foundation, Manila presents two panel discussions as part of this year’s J-CAP: Jisedai
Contemporary Arts Platform.
Motivated by the overarching theme of the Kuroshio or the Black Current, the diverse panel of artists,
curators, and cultural workers will discuss their experiences working within local artistic ecologies as well as transnational linkages between the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan through platforms such as artist residencies and collaborative projects. The objective of the discussion is to rethink and dismantle the romantic notion of the cosmopolitan, nomadic artist, instead grounding their practice within these complex transcultural assemblages.
J-CAP 2025 is a program in collaboration with Orange Project (Bacolod, Philippines), the Taiwan Art
Space Alliance (Taiwan), and TRA-TRAVEL (Osaka, Japan), with this talk event supported by the
University of the Philippines Diliman Office of the Chancellor, Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts, and the Department of Art Studies.
PANEL 1: TRANSCULTURAL ART ECOLOGIES AND RESIDENCIES IN THE PHILIPPINES, TAIWAN,
AND JAPAN
Discussion on transcultural and local ecologies and artist-run residencies, collectives, alliances, and
spaces from residency organizers in Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines
SPEAKERS:
Yu-hsuan Lee, Chairman and Wen-Tsao Lin, Consultant for Taiwan Art Space Alliance, (TASA)
Yu-Hsuan Lee is the Chairman of the Taiwan Art Space Alliance (2024–2026) and Deputy Executive Director of the Accton Arts Foundation, as well as Director of the Art Site of Railway Warehouse in Hsinchu. Since 2010, she has worked as a project manager in Taiwan, Japan, and Finland, focusing on cross-disciplinary collaboration and cultural exchange. She specializes in building shared understanding and leading teams in multidisciplinary projects.
Wen-Tsao Lin has extensive experience in galleries in the United States, where he developed an art management approach grounded in artistic practice. After returning to Taiwan, he worked across non-profit spaces, public associations, artist residency platforms, and art fairs. Since 2020, he has served as Secretary General of the Taiwan Art Space Alliance (2019.11–2025.11). His previous roles include Executive Director of the 2019 FLAME HK Video Art Fair, Chairman of the Taipei
Art Creator Union (4th and 5th terms), Manager of Open-Contemporary Art Center, and Executive Director of Shin Leh Yuan Art Space.
Jemaimah Campos
Gallery Manager, Orange Project
Jem Campos is a cultural worker at Orange Project in Bacolod City, Philippines. With a background in psychology, she is deeply interested in how artists translate emotions into visual expression. Since 2017, she has played a key role in organizing exhibitions and managing the gallery, contributing to the growth of the local art community.
She has been instrumental in organizing and mounting notable exhibitions, including the Orange Project Grand Opening (2018), Monumental: Fathom (2019), Art and Isolation (2020), Majica: Elemental (2022), Pagtilipon-tipon (2024) and recently concluded 20th year anniversary show of Orange Project and Charlie Co’s retrospective, Tugyan sa Tawo: Apat ka Dekada nga Obra ni Charlie Co. Beyond exhibitions, she actively fosters art consciousness in Negros and beyond by helping organize murals, installations, art fairs, residencies, workshops, and various artistic collaborations both locally and internationally.
Con Cabrera
Previous fellow of the Rikuzentakata Artist-in-Residence Program
Con Cabrera is a visual artist and independent curator. She is a faculty member from the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman and has attended the curatorial fellowships of the UP Vargas Museum and the Japan Foundation Third Curatorial Development Program in 2014, Independent Curators International’s Curatorial Intensive Manila in 2016, and San Art’s Uncommon
Pursuits held in Ho Chi Minh City in 2018. She participated in the Rikuzentakata Artist in Residence Program in Iwate and Paradise AIR in Tokyo, both in Japan in 2017 and returned in 2019 to co-curate RT AIR’s Kesen Art and Life Festival.
She started joining group exhibitions in 2006 and had her first solo show in 2011. Cabrera was part of
Manila Biennale’s Open City exhibition curatorial team in 2018 and co-curated Imelda Cajipe Endaya’s
retrospective at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2022. She was the CCP Visual Arts and Museum
Division’s guest curator in 2023 and her concluding project was the intensive workshop Upskilling on
Performance and Visual Arts Curation. She was one of 2024 recipients of CIMAM Travel Grant Award and has attended the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art’s annual
conference held in Los Angeles. Her works have been shown in the Philippines, Thailand, Japan, US,
and Taiwan.
MODERATOR:
Asst. Prof. Mark Louie Lugue
UP Diliman Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts, and the Department of Art Studies
Mark Louie L. Lugue teaches art histories and arts management at the Departmentof Art Studies in the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). He served as Curator of the UPD Bulwagan ng Dangal University Heritage Museum (2023-2025) and has been serving as Program Development Associate for university collections in the UPD Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts since 2020. His scholarship
and practice revolve around university heritage, collections research, and the modern in the visual arts. He is a Getty Foundation travel award grantee to the 2023 International Committee for Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) Annual Conference held in Argentina, a scholarship grantee to the 2017 Para Site Workshops for Emerging Art Professionals held in Hong Kong, and a participant to the 2018 Curatorial Development Workshop co-organized by the Japan Foundation Manila, the Philippine Contemporary Art Network, and the UP Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center.
In college, he was among the students selected to be part of the Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange
for Students and Youths (JENESYS) program in 2011, the year of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami,
though the program had to be moved to the succeeding year due to the disaster.
PANEL 2: THE INTERNATIONAL ARTIST IN THE AGE OF (DIS/RE)LOCATION
Discussion on the role of artists and transcultural negotiations and dis/relocations with art residencies,
biennales, art festivals, and other transnational platforms with previous and current J-CAP delegates.
SPEAKERS:
Tomotosi (Japan)
J-CAP 2024 Delegate, Director and Artist of the TOMO City Museum
Tomotosi’s long experience in urban planning and architectural design has led him to the idea that human activities are determined by following existing roads and architecture, but on the other hand, roads and architecture should also be constantly maintained to accommodate new human activities. However, it is also true that roads and architecture cannot be easily altered. Therefore, he has taken
the expedient measure of intervening in human behavior in the city as an artist. He aims to create distortions in urban space and public rules through his actions and to transform people’s movements. As a result, he believes that the ability to propose new ways of using the city will lead to the public maintenance of the city.
Miao-chen Huang (Taiwan)
J-CAP 2025 Delegate
Miaochen Huang is a ceramicist, whose work extends to using metal, glass, and mixed media to explore their expressive possibilities. Her practice reflects the emotional tensions between people and the dialogue between humans and their environments. She is also engaged in socially oriented art projects and community co-creation. She has participated in the Matsu Biennial, Poor People’s Taipei Biennial, and the SanYing Art Co-creation Program, producing site-specific works and co-creating with locals.
Karl Castro (Philippines)
J-CAP 2023 Delegate and artist-in-residence at TRA-TRAVEL, Osaka
Karl Castro is an artist, designer, and cultural worker whose transdisciplinary practice spans painting, weaving, collage, photomedia, and exhibition-making. He traces architectures of power, memory, and
image, unearthing the afterlives of Philippine modernisms and the erasure of marginalized histories through design and image-based inquiry. He has exhibited in the Philippines and Japan, and works with
communities and institutions on projects bridging art, archives, and political questions. Castro has
received recognition from the Philippine National Book Awards and other institutions. He is a lecturer at
the Ateneo de Manila University, research head of @brutalistpilipinas and Communication Design
Association of the Philippines, and a board member of Concerned Artists of the Philippines.
Natsuki Kuroda (Japan)
J-CAP 2025 Delegate
Natsuki Kuroda communicates through photography and believes in the extension of cameras as devices with the power to affirm seeing/being seen. Through concrete events and experiences, she finds problems and issues, and tries to question and resist them in this gradation of seeing. In past projects, she focused on and engaged with people working, living, and carrying out activities in seemingly closed spaces such as senior care facilities, zoos, and hospitals.
MODERATOR:
Asst. Prof. Szusza Velasco
UP Diliman Department of Art Studies
Szusza Velasco is an Assistant Professor from the Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines, Diliman (UPD). She holds an MA in International Studies under the Department of Political Science, and a BA in Art Studies (Interdisciplinary) at UPD. She was also an exchange student under the
International Student Program at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan. Previously, she was a Program Coordinator at the Japan Foundation, Manila, working on arts and cultural exchange initiatives by the Japan Foundation Asia Center which included exhibitions, workshops, and other collaborative platforms. Her practice and research interests center on international relations and exchanges, art histories in Asia, popular culture, and technological mediations in art.
Natsuki Kuroda (Japan) communicates through photography and believes in the extension of cameras as devices with the power to affirm seeing/being seen. Through concrete events and experiences, she finds problems and issues, and tries to question
Miaochen Huang (Taiwan) is a ceramicist, whose work extends to using metal, glass, and mixed media to explore their expressive possibilities. Her practice reflects the emotional tensions between people and the dialogue between humans and their environments. She is also engaged in socially oriented art projects and community co-creation. She has participated in the Matsu Biennial, Poor People’s Taipei Biennial, and the SanYing Art Co-creation Program, producing site-specific works and co-creating with locals.
