Venerating an icon: Santo Niño in Contemporary Philippines & the Diaspora (Part 2.3 of 2.3)1/22/2026 This is the last section of the final 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. 🕺🏻
       This is the end of the main part of my residency project. Additional photos & research from the rest of my residency are forthcoming & will be tagged under ARROZidency.
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Venerating an icon: Santo Niño in Contemporary Philippines & the Diaspora (Part 2.2 of 2.3)1/22/2026
The second part of this 2-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 part 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. Venerating an icon: Santo Niño in Contemporary Philippines & the Diaspora (Part 2.1 of 2.3)1/22/2026 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.
   
   
Parts 2.2 & 2.3 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 2 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. So excited to share the first risograph prints I've ever made, during my artist residency at ARROZidency, at OM France Studio at the Minnesota Street Project. I am absolutely IN LOVE with this process & it totally opened up a new format for me to present my photography, that never even crossed my mind. Huge thanks to Abby Banks for training me. Back in undergrad, I did an internship at a screen printing shop & learnt all the various processes to make a print/design. Everything on the back end from color separation to layering the color registration during the printing process. The riso process was very familiar. After a quick tutorial from Abby, I simply watched YouTube tutorials to get a rundown on the CMYK color separation process via Photoshop, created the design on PS using a photo from my recent Santo Niño Fiesta series (coming soon!), separated the colors out, printed the different color channels out for free at the public library, then ran them through the riso machine. It took days of practice, trial & error, & really understanding such an old, finicky machine. But the result was so worth it! This summer, I am looking forward to taking a proper risograph training, so I can then have full-time access to a riso studio. I'm so thankful for this recent residency opportunity. Without it, I don't know if I would have ever thought to try bringing my photography to riso! Here's some quick snaps from my phone, but I will make proper scans soon. Stay tuned for my Santo Niño Fiesta photo documentary series coming soon, too. This cultural event is what I centered my residency project around & I look forward to sharing with you all who read my silly lil' blog. 😝
A run of test prints just on regular copier paper, when I was first practicing & learning to understand the machine.  Final prints on Bristol paper! update 02.21.25: Proper scan of the riso print, but the scan does the colors no justice!
Going a bit out of sequence from my recent trip to the Philippines, here are some photos from a short trip my mom & I took to Cebu together. Part exploration & holiday, part study & research for an upcoming artist residency, where I am studying the origins of the Santo Niño & its context in contemporary Philippines & the diaspora. Some photos are not related to the research at all, but included are digital compositions from additional explorations around Cebu City. Fair warning, some photos are not good at all... Haha, but are more intended just for documenting purposes. All photos are from my Nikon ZF using a 24-70mm lens. I was able to sort through the photos properly through my desktop this time & edit them through Adobe Lightroom. However, for previous photos, I used the Nikon SnapBridge app through my iPhone, which I highly recommend if you're on the go & just want to get some snaps off your Nikon really quickly. Click an image below to enlarge. View from a computer for the full experience. Comments are welcome! :) Journey to Clark International AirportThe only way to get to Cebu from San Juan, La Union was to fly, since it is another island quite far away. My mom & I decided to fly out of Clark International Airport in Pampanga instead of taking the bus 6-8 hours to Manila & flying out of there. Neither of us had ever been to Clark before. After some research & confirmation from the bus company, we learnt you take the Bataan Transit bus out of San Fernando (the neighboring town) to Dau bus terminal in Pampanga, then either catch a short shuttle bus or taxi to the airport from there. Altogether, the journey was about 4 hours (minimal traffic since we left San Juan at 2AM), & saved us a few hours compared to having to trek to Manila. Clark was a positive experience, which no one usually says about airports & flying, haha. There was no traffic outside, the airport architecture was spacious, & there were more food options compared to the airport in Manila. I look forward to flying into/out of Clark Airport on my next trip to the Philippines.
Loved the Mondrian-esque stained glass color scheme of this bus terminal & the vintage-looking buses.  I was enamored by Clark Airport's post-vaporwave liminal space waiting room. Have you ever seen an airport that looks like this? Sugbo SentroLocated near our hotel was Sugbo Sentro, an outdoor food court filled with local Cebuano cuisines. Throughout the food establishments, one can find small Santo Niño altars among the food displays, as well as dancing plastic bags — an innovative solution to keeping flies away from the food. If you are vegetarian/vegan, there are not a whole lot of options here for outside of juice, rice & salted duck eggs. Sorry! 😅 I recall the space being handicap accessible (correct me if I'm wrong), but I'm not sure about the toilets. As a general practice when traveling in the Philippines, be sure to always bring your own tissue, hankies & hand sanitiser, as many toilets are not equipped with tissue or hand soap. 🥴  A small local fruit stand situated just outside of the food court. Some of my fav fruits are lanzones (which I've only ever seen in the Philippines) & rambutan. I always make sure to have these fruits whenever I go home, because they're either not accessible in the US, or they're very expensive & bland.   Palm leaves woven into vessels used to steam rice. Woven palm leaves used to cook food can be found throughout the archipelago & other parts of Southeast Asia. 
  Small Santo Niño shrines & flying plastic bags found throughout the restaurants. Filipinos are truly the most resourceful. Jumalon Butterfly Sanctuary & Art GalleryThe Jumalon Butterfly Santuary & Art Gallery is a lesser-known attraction I found in my travel guide. Many of you who know me well know that I really love butterflies. Aesthetically they're beautiful, but I also love what they represent metaphorically. Transition, transformation, change, movement, migration, travel & sometimes return (depending on the type). If you love nature, science & art, I highly recommend visiting this space. There is a small entrance fee, but if you are in a position to donate more, please do as the sanctuary is completely sustained by the family & is not supported by any government funding. You can also support by letting more people know about the sanctuary. From what the remaining family members told us, they were getting so many more visitors, school & university tours prior to the pandemic. Like many small businesses & DIY spaces, the pandemic took a toll on their foot traffic. So if you happen to be in Cebu City, please make sure to pay this unique space a visit. Here are some photos from my Nikon ZF. Fair warning, not all are nice. I documented some just for the sake of documenting, so please don't come at me in the comments with mean banter. Be nice to me. 🥹 
A few misc compositions of the garden spaces of the sanctuary. Not pictured are the fluttering butterflies that could be spotted throughout. It was a bit difficult for me to photograph them. 😅 But also, I kind of didn't want to? Sometimes it's nice to just be in the moment without holding up a camera to everything. I noticed when juxtaposing these 4 images together, they kind of have similar compositions. What do you think?  DIY display timeline on the life of Julian N. Jumalon.  Mosaic painting by Julian N. Jumalon, made with broken butterfly wings.
 Julian N. Jamalon was not only an avid butterfly enthusiast, but he was also an artist & some would even say a scientist. We were told he'd been collecting butterflies since he was a child. As an adult, he was the first artist to create mosaic paintings out of broken butterfly wings, which he'd spent time collecting over many years. Not pictured, we also got a tour of his private art studio & study, which contained many of his original sketches, small watercolor paintings & research. Something about looking into a dead man's private life was eerie, but also beautiful & special. Not formally trained as a biologist, he was also a scientist, being the first to study Native butterflies of the Philippines. He traveled throughout the Philippines, Southeast Asia & other parts of the world collecting & studying butterflies, moths & other insects. Side note: Turns out it's really difficult to photograph objects behind glass! Or, maybe I'm just not doing it properly? If any other photographers have tips, please let me know what you've got. I'm still learning a lot of new things since picking up digital photography.
A few outdoor butterfly sculpture displays.   Spiraling DIY display of cocoons held together with binder clips.
Here's some photos of the interior gallery displays. Small, intimate, & situated on the ground level of the family's home, this gallery was like stepping into a time capsule of someone's personal life. Filled with dozens of insects, this gallery also displayed plenty of misc bric-a-brac collected during Jumalon's travels over the decades. The best part of this gallery was its unpretentious & DIY nature. Everything had its own charm & personality, including the ceiling fan, old AC wall unit, cocoons inside of plastic food containers, & mismatched fabrics used to cover the displays. I hope if this collection is ever acquired by a museum, they display it exactly like this, because this is not only a collection of art & science, but it's a history of a multigenerational family's life, which is just as important & equally deserves to be preserved in the same caliber.
Last stop at the sanctuary was the art gallery (entrance pictured above), which housed all of Jumalon's award-winning original watercolor & mosaic paintings. Once inside, there is no photography allowed. I'm assuming due to fear of illegal reproductions, which is understandable. This means you'll have to visit in-person someday to see what the paintings look like! 😉 Carbon MarketNext, we visited a massive palengke (open-air public market), known as the Carbon Market. It is the oldest & biggest palengke in Cebu. It was so big, we did not get through the whole market. One, because it was so overwhelming & crowded. Two, because it was way too hot & the heat exhaustion was starting to kick in. 🥵 Dating back to the early 20th century, during the American colonial era of the Philippines, this palengke has everything from tropical fruits & veggies, street food, pasalubong (souvenirs), woven goods, flowers & more. My mom was taken aback by how much cheaper the fruit was compared to San Juan & brought back two giant bags of lanzones & rambutan. As you will see, I also came across a handful of small Santo Niño altars throughout the market. The parts along the roads can be handicap accessible. However, once you go inside, the walkways are so narrow & full of items, even a walking person can have difficulty getting through. Please practice caution & awareness when walking throughout the aisles.
 
    Misc ParadeMisc parade celebration we came across on our way to the basilica. I don't really know what it was for, haha. I am assuming it was a promotion for a local politician. 
Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de CebuThis was the main thing I wanted to go to Cebu for. I wanted to learn about the origins of the Santo Niño in the Philippines & go back to where it all started. It's quite a lot to explain & this post is already very long, but you can learn about the history on the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu official website. If you do plan to visit the basiilica, make sure to wear proper attire. It is a lot like the Vatican now: full of tourists & dress code rules. Make sure you wear a top with sleeves that does not expose your chest or back, wear close-toed shoes, & if you are wearing a dress, skirt or shorts, make sure they are well past your knees, including the backs of your knees when you bend over. They will not let you in otherwise! I thought my dress was long enough, but they saw the backs of my knees & did not let me enter. I ended up having to go to a shop nearby that sold long skirts. The funny thing was, they just started enforcing this new dress code maybe one or two days before we visited. There are loads of vendors outside the basilica selling prayer candles & other religious souvenirs. There could be a new market for the vendors to now sell long skirts & shirts. 😅 Lastly, please note that some parts of the basilica are not handicap accessible. 😔 
 
 
 
I think for me, speaking as a non-Catholic/Christian/religious person in-general, the coolest thing I got to see was the original image of the Santo Niño that first appeared in the Philippines as far back as the 16th century. Many make the pilgrimage to visit this Holy Child & sometimes queue up for several hours to quickly glance at it encased behind bulletproof glass. Me? I got lucky & only waited for 10 minutes, haha.
A bit difficult to photograph the interior of the cathedral, since visitors are not allowed to do photography past a certain point. I tried my best!
 
Magellan's Cross, found just outside of the basilica compound, symbolises the Spanish colonisation & Christianisation of the Philippines in 1521. 😮💨 The mural depicts the baptism of the former Cebu royalty to Catholicism.  Not actually at the Basilica, this was a small religious souvenir shop located just opposite. Here, I got to purchase my own mini Santo Niño made out of wood, as well as other religious goods. Mentioning again for clarity, I am not religious, & this is for research purposes only. El Fuerte de San Pedro & the National Museum of the Philippines — CebuEl Fuerte de San Pedro (Fort San Pedro) is the oldest fort in the Philippines. This makes sense, since the first Spanish settlement was in Cebu. Sources online state that you can view original artworks & Spanish artifacts at the fort. This is no longer true, as they have been acquired by the National Museum. The museum is located just next door & you can easily walk on over to learn more about Cebuano & Bisayan history, both precolonial & colonial. Fort San Pedro is not handicap accessible. If I recall, the National Museum does have lifts & accessible toilets available.      
Right: Small Santo Niño sculpture displayed at the National Museum. Unfortunately, I do not know who the artist is! If you know who it is, please let me know & I can properly credit them. Thank You!That concludes this very long post & the Return Call blog series! If you made it this far & actually read everything — thank you! But if you just skimmed through the photos, I appreciate that, too. I know I could have easily broken up this post into multiple smaller posts, but it was important to me to keep each part of the trip together as their own mini-series within a series.
Coming soon: Hopefully some film photos! I sent about 28 rolls to the lab & have soooooo many to scan. Each roll is 36 exposures, so please be patient as I sort through them all. I'm excited to share I've upgrade my 10 year old scanner & have a shiny new scanner to work with that is much higher quality & should hopefully shave off a significant amount of editing time. I'm stoked to share the results with you all! I welcome any questions or dialogue in the comments below. Would love to know your thoughts on this post. 🖤 |
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
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