Little Deaths
Ringo Bunoan
12 January – 10 February 2008
Curated by
Roberto Chabet, Nilo Ilarde, Gary-Ross Pastrana
12 January – 10 February 2008

Ringo Bunoan’s Little Deaths features installations, photographs, videos, sound, and objects that resonate ideas of momentary displacement, loss, longing, and retrieval. The works serve as markers of particular experiences and processes, offering a kind of pause for review and reflection.
“Metastasis,” a pair of two mirrors installed an inch apart, sets the tone with its gap that cuts the viewer’s reflection, tearing the body into half. Literally meaning ‘the spread of disease,’ the work probes into notions of being whole and disjointedness. Another early work, “Stream,” a line of Mylar books on the floor, also manipulates reflections while commenting on the narcissistic relationship between the self and the other.
This kind of imperfect, metaphorical mirroring is evident in collaborative works with fellow artists Gary-Ross Pastrana and Poklong Anading. In “The Other Half,” a work by Bunoan and Pastrana, objects with missing pairs are photographed together with obvious imitations of their missing partners. In “SOS,” Bunoan and Anading play an endless loop of signaling to each other, echoing each other’s call for help.
The weight of this relation is strongly felt in “Center of Gravity,” a pair of plumb bobs cast in lead. Connected by one string, each pulls the other down while finding the core of where they can both stand. Similarly in “Babel,” Bunoan’s interviews with other artists are layered on top of one another, creating a hypnotic, incomprehensible din.
The weaving and unraveling of time and desire, myths and the real are encoded in “Hurry and Delay: Self-Portrait as Penelope,” a cascading tapestry made out of steel wool. Likewise in “It’s Morning, Where Are You?” where every waking moment is recorded through photographs, creating a length of flashes of everyday life while giving shape to the unsteady transition between sleep and wakefulness.
Death and birth are entwined in “Eclipse” and “Echo and Remembrance,” co-existing rather than being two distinct beginning and end points of a line. In “Eclipse,” empty tombs give way to nature, and in “Echo and Remembrance,” an ultrasound video is juxtaposed with cold plaster casts of shells.
Two new works, “Distance” and “Bridge,” created after Bunoan’s return to Manila after nearly three years in Kathmandu, link concerns for connections and exile. In “Distance,” pencil marks drawn by the artist’s daughter on the gallery wall equal the length of the number of days since their arrival. In “Bridge,” she re-uses old wooden pallets and transforms them into a formidable channel: a structure both for transport and transcendence.
Initially planned as a retrospective, the exhibition looks back at the artist’s history, re-working and reviving earlier pieces and installing them together with new works. For the artist, returning to old material is a means of bridging over time, transforming it and finding its relevance to now. Far from something to mourn, the works in Little Deaths celebrate the continuity of life.
The exhibition is curated by Roberto Chabet, Nilo Ilarde and Gary-Ross Pastrana.
About the Artist
About the Artists

Ringo Bunoan (b. 1974) is an artist, writer, researcher, and curator whose work explores material and conceptual histories and issues of visibility and representation. Through common and found objects, installations, site-specific projects, photographs, and videos, she examines and reflects on the transient conditions of contemporary art and everyday life.
Bunoan received her BFA in Art History from the University of the Philippines in 1997 and has exhibited widely in Manila, Asia and the United States. Her works have been featured in several international exhibitions and biennales, including the recent Time of Others at the Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery and Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia at the Mori Art Museum. She is the recipient of the Thirteen Artist award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.
She taught at the UP College in Arts and worked as the Researcher for the Philippines for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of Big Sky Mind (1999–2005), King Kong Art Projects Unlimited (2010–present), and artbooks.ph (2014–present). She was the lead curator of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and the inaugural Manila Biennale: Open City in 2018.
Related Exhibitions
About the Artists
About the Artist
Ringo Bunoan (b. 1974) is an artist, writer, researcher, and curator whose work explores material and conceptual histories and issues of visibility and representation. Through common and found objects, installations, site-specific projects, photographs, and videos, she examines and reflects on the transient conditions of contemporary art and everyday life.
Bunoan received her BFA in Art History from the University of the Philippines in 1997 and has exhibited widely in Manila, Asia and the United States. Her works have been featured in several international exhibitions and biennales, including the recent Time of Others at the Singapore Art Museum and Queensland Art Gallery and Sunshower: Contemporary Art from Southeast Asia at the Mori Art Museum. She is the recipient of the Thirteen Artist award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2003.
She taught at the UP College in Arts and worked as the Researcher for the Philippines for Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong. She is the co-founder of Big Sky Mind (1999–2005), King Kong Art Projects Unlimited (2010–present), and artbooks.ph (2014–present). She was the lead curator of Chabet: 50 Years, a series of exhibitions in Manila, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and the inaugural Manila Biennale: Open City in 2018.
