This series is a meditation on the question of representation and the perceptual conditions that enable us to see not only art, but also multiple forms of difference. I photograph staircases, ceilings, passageways, and guards within museums, essential components that are seldom considered. They occupy a complicated relationship to functionality and value, much like the conditions of labor within capital. These triptychs center and translate peripheral bodies and spaces into alternate forms of possibility and agency by activating strategies of temporal looping, listening, and shadow work. I approach representation through sensation, in order to perceive the fullness of what is absent within the Western frame. These aesthetic disruptions shift dominant paradigms of objectification and labor to produce radical reorientations.

Dark Matter Series

Abang-guard is a collaborative project between Filipino-American artists Jevijoe Vitug and Maureen Catbagan that explores the intersections of immigration, labor, and visibility. Reflecting on the artistic strategies of the avant-garde, they infuse personal history and artistic practice to convey with theoretical humor the hidden nuances and complexities between institutional structures and the role of labor. 

Works include:
Abang-Guard Work Habits (ARoS), 2018, Video, TRT 3:03 min.

Abang-guard Tactical Museum, 2019, Performance, 1 hour

Daydreamer’s Manifestation Meditation, 2019, Performance, 3 sessions 15 min. each

Museum Workers Manifesto Session 3: Abang-guard: Potential of Work, 2020
PS 122 Gallery, NYC, Performance Duration 40 min. 


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Maureen Catbagan