The Weighing of the Heart is exhibited until September 30 at Vinzons Hall in the University of the Philippines Diliman. The exhibit features anatomically accurate heart sculptures made with ashes from the 2019-2020 Australian bushfires and the January 27, 2025 fire in Pook Dagohoy, UP Campus.

What I love about this edition is that visitors are invited to write the ‘weight’ of their hearts on a ‘taka’ heart. Taka is a traditional Philippine paper-mâché craft originating from Paete, Laguna. The exhibition is curated by Jhunie Sanchez, a native of Laguna. I am deeply touched by the emotional response to this growing project, and am excited to read what people wrote at the end of the exhibition.

Term 2, you were brutal, but we made it! Congratulations to 124 amazing thesis students on your sustainable design projects!

The City of Gainesville, Florida has a community-based engagement strategy called IMPACT GNV as the next step in citywide efforts to prevent gun violence. I was happy to contribute a bit to their branding. While I have never been to Florida, Brittany Coleman, their Gun Violence Intervention Program Manager, is a fellow Obama Leader whom I met in a Zoom breakout room last year. I love random meetings like this that lead to meaningful outcomes! Thank you for the merch; I wear it with joy. Thinking of you, dear friends in the US, especially those who care deeply about this issue.

More about IMPACT GNV here: https://www.gainesvillefl.gov/Community-Pages/Community/Community-Interests/Gun-Violence-Prevention-Efforts/IMPACT-GNV

It’s been a fun few weeks and here are some of what’s happened in May:

I spoke in a panel for Sydney Build 2025, Australia’s largest construction and design show, with Michael Bird, CEO of urban.com.au; moderated by Ann Austin, Executive Director of ESG Strategy, on the future of the construction industry:

I spoke in my dear friend Zoe Bezpalko’s class in the MBA in Design Strategy in the California College of the Arts about my art practice. Zoe was one of my models for the Climate Change Couture project I did in Singapore back in 2013 when I was artist in residence at the Singapore-ETH Future Cities Laboratory:

It was also the kickoff meetings for the Obama Leaders Network, and I am super stoked to be part of the Virtual Events Committee with fellow leaders Liangyi Chang, Amanda Morrell, Joseph Nguthiru, and Victoria Anastasia Belle. I’m looking forward to the year ahead!

A 3AM bedtime in Sydney for me that was worth it for a comms training by Terry Szuplat, one of President Barack Obama’s longest-serving speechwriters and author of Say It Well, with fellow Obama Leaders from the United States, Belarus, Greece, and Thailand. I was looking for tips to improve how I write about my art practice. My biggest takeaway from Terry: “The messenger matters so much.” Art takes the form of many messengers — great lesson, thanks so much!

Thank you, UN, for the kind words and for the opportunity to contribute to last year’s exhibition, “Are You Ready?” I’m grateful to use art as a way to engage with global conversations and help us steer our planet to a better path for all.

Thank you, USAID, for inspiring me to bring art and design to social change and international development. This was back in 2016 for the Climate-Resilient International Development Exchange in Bangkok, where I was invited by a USAID director to speak about The Sewer Soaperie and run a cybernetics workshop.

Thank you dear friends, artists, curators, leaders, and doctors for a fantastic month in the Philippines! I am looking forward to future art and design collaborations in this region. Important on this trip was my hand delivery of my PhD diploma to my Mom and Dad. Thank you for all the lumpia, pancit, and ube we inhaled. I’m stoked and ready to start teaching this term in Sydney, and to make all the projects for this Year of the Snake!