|
This is the last part of my 3-part series, VENERATING AN ICON. I originally was not planning to make a part 3, but recently came across the original proposal for this project & thought it would be fun to share. It's fun to look back at how I envisioned the project panning out & to have accomplished what I proposed!
Again, for anyone who's just hopping on to this series, I recommend scrolling to the bottom of & starting from part 1. In case you missed it, I've split up the work from my residency into 2 separate tags: For my main residency project only, visit:
For an extended roundup of my research during my residency, visit:
Check out my proposal deck. After viewing the project, what do you think? Did I accomplish what I proposed, or is there more you would have liked to see?
Additional photos & research from the rest of my residency are forthcoming & will be tagged under ARROZidency.
Make sure to keep checking this space, follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my YouTube channel, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my blog posts, projects, or upcoming programs. If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments.
0 Comments
This is the last section of the second part of my VENERATING AN ICON documentary photo essay. If you are starting here, I recommend scrolling to the bottom of this series & starting from part 1. In case you missed it, I've split up the work from my residency into 2 separate tags: For my main residency project only, visit: For an extended roundup of my research during my residency, visit: For this project, I was really excited to go back to my documentary photo roots. In my earlier photo work, I focused on documenting multicultural communities, sometimes with a special focus on their spiritual practices. I've documented many communities from Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, Khmer Buddhism, Krishna Consciousness, to precolonial ritualistic practices of Mesoamerica, to Native American pow wows. Religion and spirituality weren’t central to my upbringing, but it was always present. Though I wasn’t raised Catholic, I was excited to document a community tied to my culture & the history of the Philippines. There's some major reasons why my parents decided not to raise me religious, which was a bold move for immigrant parents of their generation, but I'm grateful for that choice they made in raising me. Their choice allowed me to deepen my curiosity for diverse spiritual practices & led me to discover, study & practice my own spiritual & metaphysical beliefs in my day-to-day life & art. Anyways, a lot has changed since my early documentary photo days. I first started off shooting strictly black & white film. I eventually started shooting color film once I lost access to a lab & discovered color film was cheaper to process. A couple of years ago I decided to expand my toolkit and purchased a digital camera for the first time, which I've enjoyed practicing & playing with. I recently took an advanced lighting class & hoped to expand my toolkit even further. One thing I can say for sure is that these are some of the hardest photos I've ever edited. The church banquet hall had all sorts of different tinted overhead lightbulbs. I had to do so much masking to color correct different parts of the room in these photos, which was a time-consuming challenge on top of not compromising the high saturation aesthetic I go for in my color work. All this to say, after taking this lighting class, I have a new appreciation for using flash & wonder if this could have been remedied had I brought my flash with me this time? Flash still intimidated me at that time, & after taking this class, I hope I can apply the skills I've learnt to continue documenting cultural events like these & producing the best images I can each time. I'm trying not to be scared of flash anymore! Check out the photos & let me know what you would have done differently! Images were photographed using my Nikon ZF & 24-70mm lens. Click on an image below to enlarge. I recommend viewing from a computer for the full experience.  Even more people brought their Santo Niños this time & it was so cute seeing the diverse kinds that people owned! Some titas even shared interesting stories with me about how they came to own their Santo Niños. One tita told me she allegedly rescued her Santo Niño from the trash. 🤣 She legit told me this. Y'all think she was telling the truth or was she lying at church?
 
 
 
This is where all the titas got up & started dancing with their Santo Niños! France on the right with the sheer shawl dancing with the Santo Niño I brought from Cebu. 🕺🏻
       Additional photos & research from the rest of my residency are forthcoming & will be tagged under ARROZidency.
Make sure to keep checking this space, follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my YouTube channel, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my blog posts, projects, or upcoming programs. If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments.
The second part of this 3-part series is split into 3 sections, as it's quite long. If you are starting here, I recommend scrolling to the bottom of this series & starting from part 1.
Because these blog posts cannot support video embeds if there is a lot of media content, here is a short video from my YouTube channel that documents part of the Sinulog performance at the second Santo Niño Fiesta we attended. It was so cute seeing the titas get up & dance with their Santo Niños! The last part will have photos of the performance, but it just hits different watching the movements & hearing the sounds of the music & singing. Video was filmed on my iPhone.
And again, in case you missed it, I've split up the work from my residency into 2 separate tags:
For my main residency project only, visit:
For an extended roundup of my research during my residency, visit:
2.3 will be the last section of part 2 of my main residency project series!
Make sure to keep checking this space, follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my YouTube channel, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my blog posts, projects, or upcoming programs. If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments. The second part of this 2-part series will, in itself, be split into 3 sections, as it's quite long. If you are starting here, I recommend scrolling to the bottom of this series & starting from part 1. And, in case you missed it, I've split up the work from my residency into 2 separate tags: For my main residency project only, visit: For an extended roundup of my research during my residency, visit: The second Santo Niño Fiesta we visited was at Saint Augustine Catholic Church in South San Francisco (which is its own city separate from the City of San Francisco). SSF is the city next to San Bruno, where the first fiesta took place. It is also adjacent to Daly City, where a large FilAm community resides. South San Francisco was just a BART ride away from where I was staying in San Francisco proper. While the interior architecture of this church wasn't as interesting as the first church, there was a lot more to look at within the exterior church complex itself. It reminded me a lot of the churches I've visited in the Philippines. The church was also a lot more spacious, with more room for the Sinulog performance later on. I'll share those photos in parts 2.2-2.3! This event was similar to the last one, where they had a procession for the Santo Niño, Mass, & people brought their own Santo Niños to be blessed. It was actually very exciting to see more people bring their images, & to see the many diverse kinds! Images were photographed using my Nikon ZF & 24-70mm lens. Click on an image below to enlarge. I recommend viewing from a computer for the full experience.
   
   
Sections 2.2 & 2.3 of part 2 are forthcoming, which will contain both photo & video!
Make sure to keep checking this space, follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my YouTube channel, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my blog posts, projects, or upcoming programs. If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments. 2025 was an unpredictable year, but one of the best I've ever had. After losing my job in September 2024, I experienced a prolonged period of unemployment. Instead of immediately seeking new work, I chose to take time off and use my savings to take a risk & prioritise my creative growth — something I recognise is a massive privilege. In February 2024, I had a visit at my home studio from the brilliant France Viana. At this point in my life, I had been ill for nearly four months, visiting doctors and specialists, and undergoing extensive medical testing. I needed some good news. Before her visit, France & I were connecting via email through a mutual friend, & she ended up making her way down from the Bay & took the time to visit me during her very busy LA itinerary. We enjoyed tea & mochi on the deck, connected over the type of work we both make & themes we enjoy exploring. After learning we were interested in many of the same things, namely spirituality & the metaphysical, she generously extended a month-long artist residency at her studio at the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco. I was elated. During my ARROZidency, I focused on a documentary photo essay series centering the annual Santo Niño fiestas in the Bay Area — a celebration most of my NorCal friends didn't even know existed! This project then served as an extension of my work studying the Philippine-American diaspora, specifically the Californian diaspora. Before the project, I did some background research in the Philippines and visited THE original Santo Niño de Cebu. I wanted to know why the Santo Niño was such a venerated icon in both the islands & the diaspora. When it finally came down to starting the residency & the project, I appreciated the background research I did, as it informed a different lens I couldn't have gone in with, had I not done any previous research or traced back the origins. Fast-forward to today (January 2026), it took me over a year to finally complete the main part of this project (this does not include the extended research I did while in the Bay!). Following my ARROZidency, I immediately left for the Philippines where I lived for two months & completed another month-long residency (with work I'm also trying to finish!), then came back to the US to another drawn-out sequence of unexpected health issues. This has been one of the most challenging projects I've worked on, as the photos were incredibly challenging to edit! But, more on that later. I'm excited to finally get this project off the ground & share about the work I made. I've put together 2 tags for my 2025 ARROZidency: For my main residency project only, visit: For an extended roundup of my research during my residency, visit: Since my ARROZidency project is quite long, I’ve broken it up into 3 parts, with part 2 further divided into 3 sections. Some background on part 1: We attended 2 Santo Niño Fiestas, which I was not expecting, but was happy I got to experience both. We got into a bit of a kerfuffle with the first fiesta, because we were instructed on one location & were never informed that the event was being relocated. We were already running on Filipino time as it was, so we arrived at the location we thought we had to report to, only to find that no one was there! After getting a hold of the organisers, we were told that the location moved. 😅 It was a bit of a mess, but we eventually made it. I hadn’t attended Mass since we buried my dad in the Philippines. Though I don’t share the Catholic Church’s beliefs and took on this project as a documentary exercise, I’ve always admired Catholic artistry and was genuinely excited when we arrived on location. The first part of this series took place at Saint Robert's Catholic Church in San Bruno, California. Images were photographed using my Nikon ZF & 24-70mm lens. Click on an image below to enlarge. I recommend viewing from a computer for the full experience. 
  
 The Feast Day of the Santo Niño is typically celebrated on the third Sunday of January in the Philippines. The date celebrates the day the icon of the Holy Child was gifted to the Philippines by Ferdinand Magellan in the 1500s, marking the introduction of Christianity to the archipelago. This date could be confused with the day the image of the Holy Child was discovered in Cebu, but you can read more about these dates on the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu website (the basilica in Cebu where the original Santo Niño lives). In the Bay Area of Northern California, Catholic FilAm devotees come from all over the region to attend the annual Santo Niño Fiestas. They bring their own Santo Niño statues, which the priests go around to bless with holy water following the Mass. I brought my own Santo Niño, which I purchased at a gift shop opposite the basilica in Cebu. After the blessing & conclusion of the Mass, it was followed by Sinulog dancers. Sinulog is a festival held in Cebu every third Sunday of January, celebrating the Santo Niño & the Christianization of the Philippines. Though originally a religious celebration, Cebu locals have shared with me that Sinulog has become much like Mardi Gras, drawing people from across the islands and around the world who come less for its religious meaning and more so to party. For this Santo Niño Fiesta, I felt very lucky to experience it, because I was told this was the first time they ever invited Sinulog dancers to perform after the Mass!     
      
  Part 2 in itself will be broken up into 3 different sections, as it was even longer than this one! But the images are more exciting (in my opinion), & I'll have some video to share as well.
Make sure to keep checking this space, follow me on Instagram, subscribe to my YouTube channel, or subscribe to my newsletter for updates on my blog posts, projects, or upcoming programs. If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments. This visit was a bit of a side quest, since I can't really say for certain my parents spent any time at this destination. Earlier this week, my studio assistant & I went on a little excursion to Pindangan Ruins. This is somewhere I'd always seen nearby in my Google Maps, but kept forgetting about it. My studio assistant & I recently went to a pasalubong (souvenir) shop at the San Fernando town plaza that gives out free travel guide booklets. I was reminded again of this destination when I was reading through this helpful travel guide! According to La Union Tayo!, Pindangan was the original name of the City of San Fernando. Pindangan is derived from the Ilokano word pindang, a method of sun-drying & salt preserving meat, referring to San Fernando as a destination heavy in this type of delicacy. Due to its close proximity to the sea, the original church was at constant risk of attacks from foreign invaders (ironic, since I would consider the Spanish foreign invaders themselves). Originally built by Spanish priests in 1764, the church was eventually moved to the town plaza after a couple of other previous relocations, & it is now known as the Cathedral Parish of Saint William the Hermit. However, the ruin site has a Carmelite monastery, which does have its own small church. While this visit isn't directly related to my family's history, it's still part of my study on contemporary San Fernando & integral to its timeline. Being an Ilokana in the Californian diaspora, I'm particularly interested in the parallels between Filipinos & California Natives. We share the same colonisers — both Spain & the so-called United States — & remnants of the Spanish colonial era still exist in both places. As some of you already know, I did a recent photo documentary series on the celebration of the Santo Niño in contemporary Philippines & the diaspora for my project Venerating an Icon, as part of my recent residency at the Minnesota Street Projects in San Francisco. This project is still in-progress, but I'm aiming to tie up loose ends before the end of this year! The project examined a centuries old Spanish icon that is still glorified throughout the islands & diaspora, & I was especially interested in its context within California, another former colony of Spain when it was part of what was known as New Spain. Without further adue, here are some photos from our outing to the Pindangan Ruins. All photos below are from my Nikon ZF using a Pocket Dispo lens. View from a computer for the full experience. Click any image to enlarge. 
 My studio assistant getting some practice with composition. :')
My fav easter egg I got to encounter during this visit was finding the kusikus pattern on the door frame of this small chapel (I'm assuming that's what the structure was). The kusikus is very Ilokano-specific & refers to whirlwind patterns found on abel ules, or woven inabel blankets. The kusikus comes in many variations, but this is probably the most popular version of it. Woven on blankets slept with at night, the pattern is intended to confuse & scare off bad spirits. Make sure to enlarge the images to check out that kusikus doorframe! Unfortunately, that was as close as I could get, as the property was fenced off & not accessible.   Some misc bougainvillea compositions. I love the dual juxtapositions of organic & colorful with grey distressed manmade structure. I also recently found out that bougainvillea is the official provincial flower of La Union. I learnt this through the travel guide booklet I picked up at the pasalubong shop, haha.   Being that it is Semana Santa here in the Philippines, you will usually find images of Jesus & crucifixes covered in purple veils. Starting during the Passiontide, or the last two weeks of Lent, they cover Jesus to observe the last days of his life up until his resurrection on Easter, when he is then unveiled. In the Philippines, his unveiling is considered a way of celebrating his resurrection & Easter. The veil is purple to represent royalty, reminding believers that "Christ is King". Just a friendly reminder that I don't believe in any of this shit, LOL. I just find it interesting, so don't come at me!
More blog posts on the work I've been producing during my residency will be published in the coming weeks! Make sure to keep checking this space, follow me on Instagram or subscribe to my YouTube channel for updates on my posts. All updates on my residency will be tagged under Balay da Judge.
If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments. Semana Santa (Holy Week) in the Philippines is a religious season I've always wanted to experience. It is every goth girl's dream, hahaha (just kidding). All jokes aside, it's considered a big deal in the Philippines due to the country's large Catholic demographic. Not only is it very significant here, Semana Santa in the Philippines is particularly known for the senakulo, a gory reenactment of the passion play & death of Jesus. Senakulo comes from the Spanish word cenáculo, which is Spanish for the Cenacle — the Upper Room in Jerusalem where Jesus held the Last Supper. I'm not sure if our province reenacts such a gruesome senakulo performance, but I am both looking forward to finding out & also kind of scared. 😅 I've only ever seen fake gore on TV, not real gore in real life. Kicking off Semana Santa, I went to the local church at the town plaza in San Fernando, less than a 15 minute walk from my studio at the Balay da Judge, to attend an Ilokano mass for Palm Sunday. I knew the streets would be filled with palaspas, or woven palms. Signifying the start of Semana Santa, Filipinos carry their palaspas in hand to observe Jesus' entry into Jerusalem, where he was greeted with folks waving palms at him. While palaspas has its religious connotations, let's also acknowledge the art of palm weaving as a pre-colonial Indigenous practice. Aside from religious purposes, palm weaving is also used to make vessels to cook rice, baskets, fiesta goods & more. This moment feels full circle for me, since before I came back to the Philippines, I produced a palm weaving workshop for Mata Art Gallery in partnership with Artronika, led by teaching artist Diyan Bukobomba. Check out a recap here! All photos below were created with my Nikon ZF using a Pocket Dispo lens. View from a computer for the full experience. Click any image to enlarge. 
More blog posts on the work I've been producing during my residency will be coming up this week! Make sure to keep checking this space, or follow me on Instagram for updates. All updates on my residency will be tagged under Balay da Judge.
If you've read this far, thank you! Please feel free to share your thoughts or any questions in the comments. |
NICA AQUINOIn this space I'll share digital previews of my film photography, updates on new artworks in progress, upcoming programs, inspiration & my other misc interests. Archives
February 2026
Categories
All
|
- Home
-
About
- Bio
- Full CV
- HIRE ME!
- Connect >
-
Press
>
- Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association
- Asian Voices TV, Ep. 10
- Art & Cake Contemporary Art Magazine
- Artillery Magazine
- Corridor8
- Diversions LA >
- FilAm Arts
- Itaú Cultural Encyclopedia of Brazilian Art and Culture
- LA City Dept. of Cultural Affairs
- LA Weekly
- Los Angeles Contemporary Archive
- Mutual Art
- Occidental News >
- Oregon Arts Watch >
- Portland Mercury
- Positively Filipino
- Random Lengths News
- Salo-SALA
- San Antonio Current
- Street Roots
- University of Southern California Center for Religion and Civic Culture
- Voyage LA
- Donate >
- Projects
- Blog
- Mata Art Gallery
- Calendar
RSS Feed
