Last Flight

The husband-and wife duo Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan emphasise the social aspect of art making in their practice. Working with marginalised communities, the artists ask participants to collect objects that represent their shared identity or reflect a social issue. Their work is less about the object on view as it is about the engagement with the site, the materiality of found objects, the interactions with both the community and the audience, and the layers of meaning created from each connection.

In 2003, the artists collaborated with Barangay Uno, a small fishing village in Bagasbas, Camarines Norte, in the Philippines, on a community art project to address the severe garbage problem that saw debris and refuse from neighbouring islands accumulating on the village’s shores, brought by the tidal movements.  As the villagers worked to clear the garbage, the artists also requested them to collect discarded slippers which were then used for a site-specific art installation on the beach. The artists then continued working with the community for many years thereafter, using the rubber slippers gathered by the villagers to create several wing sculptures. In Last Flight, (2009), the discarded rubber slippers are transformed into angel’s wings that perhaps allude to the salvation of a community through art, but also to the larger issues of migration and displacement experienced by thousands of Filipinos who venture abroad to provide for their families back home.