Abot Kaya? – An everyday question that echoes in the mind of a struggling individual as we continue to experience the impacts of inflation in the country whereas living has somewhat become a matter of survival.

As an artist with knowledge and experience in selling general merchandise to people in our small town through our family’s small sari-sari store business, my work seeks to relate with the audience by sharing the common struggles in consuming and surviving on a limited number of commodities in the face of current inflation. This thesis explores the process of visualizing the effects of inflation through the lens of recognizable Filipino images, experiences, and storefront characteristics found in local neighborhood stores. By altering the usual scale of various products and popular subjects that are visually incorporated and recognizable within the local neighborhood stores.

This thesis investigates how the manipulation of scale and proportion within these visual subjects contribute to storytelling, enhance comprehension of underlying concepts, and highlight social, economic, and cultural disparities through a thorough analysis of visual representations found in local stores.

Since sari-sari stores are known to serve the purpose of providing basic necessities in staple amounts, the process of miniaturizing the usual size of a product underlines the declining worth and quantity of commodities that people are currently receiving by reducing the customary size of the products. Producing multiple copies of miniature items also acts as a metaphor for the cyclical nature of the struggle. The act of making art involves the laborious task of meticulously replicating familiar objects on a smaller scale, which captures the recurrence of these experiences.

Through this thesis, the artist highlights the repetitive nature of this crisis, depicting the experiences and narratives that individuals endure as they navigate the impacts of inflation. This imaginative depiction in the form of a wall-bound mixed media work encourages viewers to consider their own experiences with inflation and the never-ending cycle of coping with its
impacts. This thesis seeks to spark conversations, arouse awareness and empathy, and shed light on this pressing matter we experience.

This thesis is a series of oil paintings depicting my experience and observation as a commuter in the new normal using symbolism and metaphor. My works are inspired by the movement of Social Realism; the topic, commuting as a shared social experience.
Commuting from Rodriguez, Rizal, to Quezon City after several lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic is a different experience. My experiences and observations throughout my commuting journey developed these five concerns: infrastructure projects, commuters’ conditions, lack of public transportation, transportation fares, and commuters’ safety.

My thesis aims to express my fears as a bigender artist in relation to coming out of the closet and sharing my identity to my family. The goals of this thesis is to successfully portray myself as bigender through the use of paintings, as well as to help queer individuals feel visible and seen through a visual narrative that they can relate to. The final output is a wooden closet with paintings; one of which would be visual representations of my hesitation in coming out, painted on the doors, while the other painting will be inside the closet, upon being opened by the viewer, showing my identity as bigender. Inside the closet are clothes and accessories that I wear in my everyday life in order to show that clothing is not gendered.