MO_Space is pleased to present flight, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.

The stair is one of the most iconic forms of design; it has played a major role in the history of architecture since the beginning of humanity. Stairs solve problems in daily life by allowing us to easily access vertical distances. Yet its form transcends pure functionality; it is used by religions all over the world as a symbolic connection of the earth to the sky—an aspirational path to the divine.

Christina Quisumbing Ramilo pursues her ongoing fascination with stairs presenting a series of maquettes in varying sizes, devoid of all elements, bringing direct focus to structure and surface material. These stairs are transitory places leading nowhere. They impel us to ponder on unknown destinations, on what could be at its end. When a house is torn down, a trace of its stairs is what often remains. It makes us wonder about who used to walk on them, the stories of former inhabitants.

For this exhibition, Ramilo positions stairs in multiple configurations. Several are pairs, positioned differently from each other, a suggestion that the same object can have many possibilities, some of which may not be immediately evident until there is a change in perspective.

The maquettes are based on various existing stairs that Ramilo has encountered in her journeys, visiting important sites such as Borobudur, Prambanan, and the Aztec Ruins in Mexico. She also visited Winchester House, renowned for architectural curiosities including stairs that go nowhere and stairs with odd-sized risers. The steps of Angkor Wat and its surrounding temples are at exaggeratedly steep angles: a reminder that heaven is difficult to reach. Ascending the Scala Santa in Rome is a penance that many Christians undertake with the sacrificial tradition of climbing stairs using one’s knees. Ramilo also referenced historical and mythical stairs. The Biblical story of the Tower of Babel describes God’s wrath at the arrogance of man for attempting to reach the unattainable. 

Ramilo’s interest in stairs began with her discovery of “madres,” which in vernacular terminology refers to stairway stringers that hold the steps together, aptly named after mothers. She repurposed discarded “madres” as an element in some of her past work, using them for benches, totems, and glass steps. Ramilo has included one or two works involving stairs in previous shows. But for the first time, stairs are the sole theme of the exhibition, stripped of clues, their purest essence laid bare.

flight is a contemplative exhibition that compels us to consider the physicality of a fundamental structure and its abstract metaphors: a concept that unites places, ideas, or states of being.

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