ARTWORKS that ponder Philippine colonial history, personal and collective memory, and expressions of faith came out on top in the 2025 edition of the Ateneo Art Awards (AAA), held last Sunday at the Ateneo Art Gallery of the Ateneo De Manila University in Quezon City.
The four main prize winners for the Ateneo Art Awards-Fernando Zobel Prizes for Visual Arts — given to artists for an exhibit of their works — were Jel Suarez’s As I Lift One Stone, Silke Lapina’s Bakit Pa, Hannah Reyes Morales’ Home Holds Still, and Uri De Ger’s Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Colonizer.
Nine residencies were also given out, including the No Space Residency in Baguio, Benguet, to Mr. De Ger; the ABungalow Residency in Talisay, Negros Occidental, to Ms. Morales; and Project Space Pilipinas in Lucban, Quezon, and La Trobe Art Institute in Bendigo, Australia, to Ms. Lapina.
Ms. Suarez received five residency grants, from CASA San Miguel in San Antonio, Zambales; Koganecho Area Management Center in Yokohama, Japan; The Creative Campus at Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, UK; the Monsoon Southeast Asia Collection and LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore; and OCAD University in Ontario, Canada.
The winners were chosen from a shortlist of 12, which, in turn, were chosen from 158 nominees back in August.
Mr. De Ger’s Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Colonizer — exhibited at Kalawakan SpaceTime — examines how neocolonial forces actively shape contemporary Filipino perceptions of beauty, value, and identity. His installation pieces and paintings draw from internet culture and humor to expose how Filipino aesthetic ideals are informed by Western imperialism.
Ms. Morales’ Home Holds Still was exhibited in Tarzeer Pictures. Her photographs explore how historical memory and current events shape everyday life, spanning Duterte’s drug war to the present day. Her body of work had previously earned her a Pulitzer Prize finalist spot.
Ms. Lapina’s Bakit Pa — exhibited at Edoweird — was only her second solo show in the Philippines. As a German-Filipino multimedia artist, she tackles themes of faith, doubt, and resilience, inspired by Filipino Catholicism and German skepticism, in her installation which uses textiles, mirrors, images, and light.
Ms. Suarez’s As I Lift One Stone was exhibited at the Blanc Gallery. Pulling from her personal experience of moving houses, her collage art depicts found objects like book pages, scraps of wood, and fragments of writing. Her ink-brush drawings are assembled to evoke feelings of uncertainty, change, and impermanence.
“The exhibit happened at a time when I found out my mom was sick. She’s terminally ill, so I had to figure out how to come up with works with portability because I needed to be back and forth in Manila and Bacolod,” Ms. Suarez told BusinessWorld after the awarding.
“My practice is mainly collage-making, but for this exhibition it transformed into object-making,” she added, noting that her goal is for the works to resonate with people who may see their own personal memories in the collection of items.
Meanwhile, the Ateneo Art Awards-Purita Kalaw-Ledesma (PKL) Prizes in Art Criticism went to Pie Tiausas and Bea Belen-Ferrer in the English category and Emersan Baldemor in the Filipino category.
Mr. Tiausas’ essay, “The internet is a space for the lonely,” was awarded the PKL Prize for The Philippine Star. With the essay “In Between Flight and Fallout: What Would Postwar Modernists Do?,” Ms. Belen-Ferrer clinched the PKL Prize for ArtAsiaPacific magazine, the Naranja Residency under Orange Project, and the Indeks Residency grant. Mr. Baldemor’s essay, “Hindi Lahat ng Umaangat ay Naaalala: Si Tandang Ano at ang Politikang Estetiko ng Paglimot,” earned him the PKL Prize for the Katipunan Journal and the White House Residency grant.
The Ateneo Art Awards 2025 exhibit is on view at the third floor of the Ateneo Art Gallery in Areté, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Ave., Quezon City, until Dec. 7. — Brontë H. Lacsamana
