Exhibitions

Lights, Tunnels, Passages & Shadows

A triptych of diffused images, the first is of a silhouette of a figure, the second is darkly colored, the third is off-white with a zig zag pattern

Maureen Catbagan, Triptych: Lights, Tunnels, Passages & Shadows

Lights, Tunnels, Passages, and Shadows by Maureen Catbagan examines the transcendent possibilities of peripheral spaces within museums. A utilitarian passage transforms into an ethereal opening. A mundane corner vibrates with a change of light. An invisible worker’s movement conveys visual poetry. Stairwells become illuminated, meaningful, and spiritual. Shifting the visual paradigm of these spaces, objects, and people changes their meaning and the viewers’ relation to them.

The photographic series is featured in a boxed folio containing three fold-outs that enable the images to be arranged into multiple compositions creating abstract narratives that connect the peripheral to the sublime while focusing on the museum worker as mediator. These re-configured fold-outs act as architectural interventions illustrating that while the marginal is designated towards boundaries, it can also be the edge towards boundlessness.

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About the Artist

Maureen Catbagan is a Filipinx American, multi-media artist based in New York whose work engages social collectivity, examines relations between identity and experience, and explores new forms of empowerments. Collaborative projects include Flux Factory and HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? Collectives. They have also written critical essays with Dr. Amber Jamilla Musser. Catbagan has exhibited in venues such as ARoS Museum in Denmark, Witte de Withe Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and The Contemporary Museum of Honolulu. Their current collaborative work with artist Jevijoe Vitug as Abang-guard focuses on immigrant experience within the context of labor and visibility.