‘Eskultura IV: Steampunk’ Group Exhibition Debuts at Museo Orlina

Museo Orlina, the flagship art museum of the Orlina family, debuted their fourth Eskultura exhibition on September 7, giving local sculptors a chance to create some inventive artworks around the theme of steampunk. Featuring eight esteemed artists from the local art scene, the group exhibit allowed them the freedom to experiment with the subgenre in a Philippine context. 

“Eskultura IV: Steampunk expands the language of the genre by showcasing works crafted from an eclectic mix of materials—wood, resin, fabric, glass, ceramics, and repurposed items. The result is a dynamic dialogue between form and narrative, where each piece challenges convention while celebrating innovation and craftsmanship,” the exhibit write-up said.

The eight sculptors featured are Richard Buxani, Ram Mallari, James Dayrit, Jinggoy Salcedo, Darwin Guevarra, Otto Neri, Ronwaldo Dasal, Agi Pagkatipunan, and Darwin Guevarra. All of them utilize the central conceit to conceive of strange new designs that straddle the line of the magic of art and the practicality of science.

“The exhibition invites audiences to journey into imaginative worlds filled with mechanical creatures, fictional devices, and hybrid machines,” the exhibit write-up said. “each work [serves] as a testament to how steampunk continues to inspire, evolve, and expand the horizons of contemporary sculpture in the Philippines.”

Steampunk in a Philippine Context

As an artistic movement, steampunk is constrained in the melding of steam technology from the Industrial Revolution to common technologies of today’s world. It is an inherently nostalgic technology because of this, running contrary to the more minimalist aesthetic of our age, concerning itself with showing the literal nuts and bolts behind every machine. 

But if it does not make for practical technology, it works as a way of imagining an alternate universe. The eight artists here craft a strange mix of whimsical sculptures grounded not just in the aesthetic of the movement, but in the context of how a steampunk universe would exist in the Philippines. 

An example of this is Darwin Guevarra’s “Beetle Rush 03” and “Pre-war Bike Cargo 01 Red.” The metal-resin sculptures captivate by showing vehicles jury-rigged for daily use, the same kind of principles that first brought us the jeepney in the past. The rusted aesthetic provides it a grounding to our realities today: no car or bicycle used heavily in our country would escape the rust that our humidity would provide. 

Steampunk is a very interesting movement to apply for the Philippines, because in some ways most Filipino technologies are steampunk: it’s the improvisations in seemingly-broken devices, or our constant recycling of materials for new uses. It’s seen in how repurpose things into complicated devices that work, from old Coke bottles used to filter water to the jeepney.  

“In the Philippine context, steampunk has inspired local artists to explore new ways of storytelling through sculpture,” the exhibit write-up said. “[It’s] melding the mechanical with the organic, infusing local sensibilities and sustainable practices into the genre, these creators present a uniquely Filipino interpretation that bridges artistry, imagination, and cultural identity.”

Moving Sculpture Forward

This imaginative spirit abounds in the exhibit. Ram Mallari’s “The Steam Caster” and “Battle of the Nuts” reimagines the guitar and the chess board as mechanisms made of gears and propelled by steam; Jinggoy Salcedo fascinates with his forests made of a mix of metal and glass and lit with whimsical colors; and James Dayrit gets playful with references to Filipino pop culture with his sculpture of the Voltes V robot in mid-attack. 

Ramon Orlina, the legendary glass sculptor from which Museo Orlina gets its name, expressed his own satisfaction at the artworks for Eskultura IV: Steampunk. 

“As a sculptor, I am happy that the field of sculpture is flourishing in the Philippines,” he said. “I am impressed with the talent and ingenuity of the artists in this show and hope this show will inspire more artists to try their hand at sculpture.”

Eskultura IV: Steampunk showcases the imagination inherent in the way we as Filipinos conceptualize our realities. We don’t just see the technology’s surface, but the gears and bolts beneath it, digging deeper to meld the technology towards our environment. It’s not just about adopting art styles; we make it our own. 

Eskultura IV: Steampunk will run in Museo Orlina until November 24.

Photos provided by the gallery.

Related reading: ‘RAM: Nature’s Abundance’ is the Orlina Family’s Collaborative MoCAF Exhibit

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