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If only rest and relaxation could be the optimal state for pursuing a creative life, Augustine Paredes wouldn&rsquo;t have to migrate. But as a multimedia artist possessed by a growing sense of restlessness to understand his identity, self-care comes in the form of deconstructing resistance and resilience within the networks of colonized histories and territories. 
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Sometimes being a Filipino feels like being borderline everything. Blurry boundaries abound and mixed influences from our ancestry, colonizers, and diasporic communities bleed into each other, resulting in a multi-generational identity crisis.
 On a positive note, this awareness allows multidisciplinary artist Augustine Paredes to question the intricacies of the Filipino identity. He doesn&rsquo;t have the answers yet to the most pressing questions, but what&rsquo;s important for him is voicing out his resistance to the cultural programming he&rsquo;s been fed since childhood.
 Born in Cagayan de Oro City, his family is mostly comprised of nurses, politicians, and teachers, but it&rsquo;s Augustine&rsquo;s &ldquo;inherent curiosity&rdquo; that led him to pursue the arts. &ldquo;I wanted to be a photographer since I was 12,&rdquo; he shares. As a middle child who grew up emulating his siblings and his revered image-makers, he advanced his interests into a visual language that meshes photography, painting, poetry, and installation.
 Always shuffling between Dubai and Frankfurt with occasional residency stops, Augustine gives the impression that he lives in the buzziest districts, but in reality, he appreciates stillness. &ldquo;People think I live in Berlin. I don&rsquo;t. Frankfurt is where I am and where I focus. It&rsquo;s very calm. I go to the studio and go back home. It&rsquo;s away from all the art noise.&rdquo;
 This intimacy is felt in his projects &mdash; from his book Conversations at the end of the universe (2020) to his Jameel Arts Centre Artist's Room solo exhibition (2024). Both trace his most personal thoughts under the guise of conversations and confessions. But Augustine sees to it to balance intimacy with collaboration because identity can only be understood and strengthened if it&rsquo;s forged by genuine connections and examined in the right contexts.&nbsp;
 &ldquo;As much as you have multifaceted ways of looking at things, it still is different to talk or collaborate with other people. I&rsquo;m interested in introspective self-portraiture, but then it craves to hear other people and other stories,&rdquo; he says.

Conversations at the end of the universe

Paradise 4ever

Premise for Temporary Solitude

You moved to Dubai in 2016 and Frankfurt in 2023. What prompted these moves? In 2016, I was going through a very difficult time in Davao and Manila. I was working at Manila Fashion Fest as the art director. I was feeling kind of lost in my life. Then this job opportunity to move to Dubai as a photographer&rsquo;s assistant came. I decided to do that. I never looked back.
I moved to Dubai as a photographer&rsquo;s assistant and made a living out of photography and art direction. Alongside, I pursued my art practice by attending fellowships and workshops. Luckily, I was able to explore some gallery spaces and was able to be a part of the growing community back then. After seven years of living in Dubai, I chose to apply for a Fine Arts program in Frankfurt.
When I got that opportunity, I moved and decided to do more art than commercial photography because back then, even though I would have my practice as an artist, I still needed to go back to shooting commercial stuff. But then in 2023, up until now, I made the switch between doing 70% of my time to my practice rather than just 30%.
 Would you say the drive to be an artist is stronger than to be a commercial photographer? My artistic work ethics come from the commercial world or the advertising industry. Whereas, my art practice bleeds into my commercial practice because I&rsquo;m able to look at photography projects with an artistic point of view, rather than just purely marketing or advertising.&nbsp;
If I remove myself from the money aspect of living, being an artist gives me more fulfillment. It fulfills your desire to be who you are.
But then at the same time, it also gives a lot of precarity. Living as an artist is not as viable as living as a commercial photographer. At the same time, it takes away that fulfillment because you are saturated with work that seems to be consumed within seconds. Whereas art gives you that fulfillment that this work can outlive you.

The Bitter Taste of Sweetness

Was it difficult to penetrate the art scene in Dubai? It was difficult at the beginning because Dubai is full of immigrants. There&rsquo;s a lot of diversity in terms of culture and people. I co-founded Sa Tahanan Collective with Anna Bernice delos Reyes. One of the things she always says, which is something that drove us to build this Filipino art collective is the idea that 20% of Dubai&rsquo;s population comprises Filipinos. But that doesn&rsquo;t reflect the art scene.
When I started in 2016, it was difficult because there were fewer opportunities for people like me in the art scene. But then it got easier primarily because they saw the diverse culture that was in front of them.
 You&rsquo;re influenced by Joan Didion, Wong Kar-Wai, and Ocean Vuong. But can you tell us more about your Filipino influences?&nbsp; Among my inspirations is my mentor, Wawi Navarozza. I met Wawi in 2014. I was still a teenager back then. She helped me explore this idea of photography as a way of storytelling. I look at her self-portraiture and get inspired by the fact that you can tell a lot of stories by putting yourself at the center of it, not in a narcissistic way, but rather, as a reflection of the society that you&rsquo;re in. It&rsquo;s very much how Joan Didion and Ocean Vuong would write about their stories and put themselves at the center. I read a lot of Jia Tolentino too. I also look at the Santos family &mdash; Luis, Isabel, and Carina.&nbsp;
I consume a lot of Filipino content like TikToks for giggles. The other thing that inspires me is our resilience but also our resistance. In the last three years, I have been working with pi&ntilde;a fabric. Pi&ntilde;a, as a material, has a lot of colonial weight. It was brought to us during the Spanish colonization, and we made it our own.
That symbolizes resilience but also resistance. The fabric itself uses a lot of violence when it is being made. I look at the Philippines and my Filipino-ness as the center of my practice especially when you look at it in a different way as a migrant.
 Interestingly, you use the word violence whenever you&rsquo;re talking about the fabric. Was your experience of decolonizing yourself a rude awakening? Yes. It was a harsh awakening. Growing up in the Philippines, we consume a lot of foreign media. When you start looking and introspecting, you question all of these. Why have I accepted all of these influences? Am I submitting to the colonizers? That made me question what is it that makes me Filipino when everything I&rsquo;m influenced by is from outside. That&rsquo;s still a question that I ask myself right now. It is a very hard question because my family name is not necessarily Filipino. It is Spanish. When I say my name to people &mdash; it&rsquo;s like, oh, you are Filipino? Or are you from somewhere else? I would hear some people being proud to be referred to as a different nationality.
I needed to understand why I was accepting all of these influences. In my practice, I trace back the steps starting from the Spanish colonization, like how we accepted pi&ntilde;a and made it into our barong. But in a way, there is resistance in submission.
 What do you mean by resistance in submission? When we decide to submit, or when I decide to submit to a bigger thing, who has the power, actually? Is it you that I submit to? Or is it me who decided to submit? This is a question I keep asking myself. It&rsquo;s also in the same line of questioning, is there comfort in violence?

If I Must Sin

Lament for Longings

Jameel Arts Centre Artist's Room solo exhibition

Your work carries a sense of tenderness and intimacy. Are you romantic or cerebral? I&rsquo;m both. I look at things in a very romantic way, but then I get out of the room, and think about it, and intellectualize it.
 You travel a lot. Have you experienced reverse culture shock every time you return to the Philippines? I&rsquo;m shocked with how things are. Not necessarily the industry, but the Philippines as a whole. I&rsquo;m so surprised at how much the prices have increased. Apart from inflation, something within me questions why Filipinos don&rsquo;t like walking. Maybe it&rsquo;s because of the weather. When I was in my mom&rsquo;s hometown in Cotabato, I wanted to visit my cousin, and my mom was like, &lsquo;Take a motor or a car.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s a five-minute walk, why would I do that? This happened again in Manila. We were going from one gallery to another. It&rsquo;s a 10-minute walk. I can walk there. But everyone was like, &lsquo;Just take a car.&rsquo;
Aside from that, when I go home to the Philippines, I have a certain expectation already because I consume a lot of Filipino content, and I&rsquo;m still in touch with a lot of my Filipino friends.
 Is there a particular piece or series in your work that holds a significant meaning or turning point in your career? My second book, Long Night Stands with Lonely, Lonely Boys. It&rsquo;s a project that I&rsquo;ve done with Carlos Quijon, Jr. It started as a project that I showed to Wawi Navarozza in 2014. I developed it from 2013 to 2014 and then it got published in 2021. It took a lot of time, and it took me to a lot of places. It changed how I look at life &mdash; my art practice, my desires, and my writing.
 What are your current curiosities? I&rsquo;ve been making painterly sculptures. I&rsquo;ve also been looking at queer narrative erasure or queer erasures during the Pacific War in the Philippines.&nbsp;
This was inspired by Markova. It was a starting point in my research in Korea. I only found out that it&rsquo;s only Markova who exists as a comfort gay or came out as a comfort gay in the Philippines. In Korea, they have a lot of records of comfort women, but then there&rsquo;s no record of a comfort gay or a male person that was abused in the comfort stations. So this is a curiosity that I&rsquo;m taking with me for this year and the next coming years.
 In your opinion, what&rsquo;s the role of preserving the Filipino culture, especially in today&rsquo;s rapidly changing world? Preserving Filipino culture is vital. It is the root of my identity. It is the root of my practice and everything I do. I have to preserve it. I travel a lot, but I hold on to this Filipino-ness because it&rsquo;s a home that I return to. It&rsquo;s important to share this identity with the rest of the world, but it&rsquo;s important to be critical of this identity too. I will preserve but also criticize.
 As a migrant, have you ever considered returning for good? Why or why not? I would love to return home. Every year, it&rsquo;s always like, it&rsquo;s time to go home, because my mom is getting older, and I really want to be with her. Why not? Because there aren&rsquo;t many opportunities for artists in the Philippines, sadly.
It&rsquo;s always at the back of my head. When it&rsquo;s time to go home, it would be an interesting next chapter, but maybe not yet. There&rsquo;s still a lot for me to figure out. Being a migrant Filipino is a very interesting thing. There&rsquo;s still a lot of stories to uncover. We hear a lot of stories about Filipino-Americans or stories about Filipinos who migrated to America, but not so much in the Middle East or Europe. Let&rsquo;s see. I will come home eventually.

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It&rsquo;s important to share this identity with the rest of the world, but it&rsquo;s important to be critical of this identity too.
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Multidisciplinary Artist Augustine Paredes Is Exploring Boundaries

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