VISIBLE: Self-Construction and Wild Growth

by WNC Projects (Wawi Navarroza and Nicolás Combarro)

In response to Manila Biennale 2018 “Open City”, WNC Projects (the collaboration between Filipino artist Wawi Navarroza and Spanish artist Nicolás Combarro) presents a site-specific work bringing focus towards two presences very much alive surrounding Manila: local architecture (mostly self-constructed) and urban nature (spontaneous plant growth). The artists highlight these two rampant realities of the city, although often ignored, as a starting point for rethinking about our place in it. 

VISIBLE can be seen at Plaza Moriones in Fort Santiago as a site-specific installation/sculpture/bricolage made with repurposed wood from past Intramuros dismantled buildings, and botanical samples transplanted from wild growth spurted from the walls of Intramuros, crevices of cement, the interstices and abandoned historical sites. Their photographic archive will also be presented in collages pasted outdoors.

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WNC Projects is a collaboration between international contemporary artists Wawi Navarroza (Manila, Philippines) and Nicolás Combarro (Madrid, Spain) who have worked regularly since 2011 in various exchanges in photography: image, text, workshops, publications and exhibitions between Southeast Asia and Europe. Both Navarroza and Combarro see their artistic practices combine photography with intervention and installation, anchored with a backbone on research. Each active locally and globally, they work on immersive projects that involve the artistic/conceptual, as well as the organization, production and articulation of their works. They are also active as educators. In 2017, they have been selected as finalists for the WMA Commission, Hong Kong addressing the issue of Mobility in big cities.