ROOM FOR RENT

Dwelling, Drifting

To live in a separate space, away from home, in order to pursue previously distant opportunities in education and jobs is now a signifier of normal Filipino life.Hustling to make more room and stretching the meaning of comfort mark our treatment to, and relationship with cities. In Room 4 Rent, thirteen artists gather recountings and reimaginings of inconspicuous, borrowed space.

A room, an apartment, or a bed in the city is not an end goal in itself, but a marker of being both a dweller and drifter. In these industrialized centers, there are glimpses of a more promising life for many. This path has been trodden upon by waves of workers and generations past. Yet, one might ask, after all this time, why is it still so?

In ruminating on this cultural treatment of a space and its relevance, the artists define man’s relationship with how it is inhabited. They depict neighborhoods and interiors and give us a peek into the lives of its mix of idealistic and forlorn tenants.

Setting foot in the city is already a small success for many, and in Fitting Room by Nina Garibay, there is an optimism that comes with accessing opportunity to ‘move up’ the proverbial ladder. Alburoto’s Live Out series highlights how life in the city affects students. It being a balancing act of becoming booksmart and the anxiety of adjusting in their new environment where they have to learn how to fend for themselves.

It feels like everyone is here and the world becomes smaller. Alee Garibay and Lance Gomez delineate barely adequate space for sleep and work using muted yet heavy tones in their respective pieces, Dangling Conversations and Tanaw. Built for shallow rest and nothing else, time inside is also constricted for tasks that involve wellbeing. Sarah Conanan’s Circle the Drain illustrates how even hygiene becomes haphazard when subject to a demanding schedule. Being in a communal space with strangers could also give way to encroachment of one’s personal space, as seen in Mac Eparwa’s surreal series of Unwanted Guests.

In this arrangement comes foremost the problem of rent. Freddie Vicente’s Kaliwa’t Kanan depicts the lengths of frugality taken in order to survive through loose gestures with soft pastel that suggest confusion. While salaries and the minimum wage rarely see an increase, landlords are able to milk tenants and raise prices yearly. Touching upon a more time-based breakdown of the everyday in Rhythm, Emard Cañedo grids and plans for the future. He plots the arrival of petsa de peligro and the costs of parenthood, hence why he likens his work to the calendar method.

Kirk Tabanera, Roger Mond, and Bam Garibay present a cast of characters that make cohabiting all the more interesting. Tabanera takes inspiration from familiar neighborhood noise in Aso,Lakay: the barking askal and the neighbor who feeds them. In Goodnight Sleep Tight, Roger Mond depicts a brazen resident taking the edge off. Garibay’s Pensieve shows an eccentric yet secretive exchange, one affected by a devolving political sphere, serving as an anxious vision of the future.

The insecurities of tenants are captured by Christian Culangan and Jonathan Madeja. Culangan’s Multitask explores the almost mechanical feeling brought on by working long hours that seeps into time off, while Midnight Snack evokes concerns of physical security in rented spaces by emulating camera functions such as auto-detecting and surveillance. On the other hand, Madeja paints a reclining man with his head turned away from us in Pahuway, who is most likely a fisherman driven to the city due to financial instability.

On this note, Madeja’s piece also serves as a somber reminder that through urbanization, we are turning our backs on what sustains the cities. The produce of the farmers, fishermen and other rural workers are in hindsight the backbone of our material life outweighing the products of the city.

It is a real fear, that even though a “Room For Rent” is a sign of hope and opportunity despite expected discomforts, it does not produce an equally paved path for everyone. Experientially, it may foster independence and is a hotbed for adventure, yet it is still primarily a way of addressing our survival. A certain disquietude accompanies one that has to turn to migratory movement, and as a consequence, it conveys our own uprooting.

- SC