CAROLINE GARCIA & JD REFORMA

’THE FULLNESS OF TIME’
7 NOVEMBER – 14 DECEMBER, 2019

PrimeTime, installation view, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley. — *PrimeTime*, installation view, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

In this new collaborative exhibition, each artist explores, through two distinct yet interrelated approaches, the way that time is recorded in material and language. In her new installation PrimeTime, Garcia has developed a choreography of transliteration, oscillating between Tagalog and English languages, spoken and written, distorting the perception of time through different tenses. In his new series of works , Reforma has utilised accretive, durational gestures to distill products and materials associated with Asia and Pacific cultures into a series of installations that explore form, mark and composition.

“The Fullness of Time”, installation view, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

JD Reforma, Pacific Sebum, series of 16 coconut oil paintings of the Philippines on manila paper, 22 x 30 cm each, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley. — JD Reforma, *Pacific Sebum*, series of 16 coconut oil paintings of the Philippines on manila paper, 22 x 30 cm each, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

JD Reforma, Brown on the outside, single-channel video installation, 14 minutes 24 seconds, coconut husk, Videography: Motel Picture Company, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley. — JD Reforma, *Brown on the outside*, single-channel video installation, 14 minutes 24 seconds, coconut husk, Videography: Motel Picture Company, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

JD Reforma, Whitewash, skin-whitening papaya soap wall-drawing, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley. — JD Reforma, *Whitewash*, skin-whitening papaya soap wall-drawing, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

JD Reforma, Archipelago, coconut shell, table, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley. — JD Reforma, *Archipelago*, coconut shell, table, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

PrimeTime, 2019

By Caroline Garcia

The source material for PrimeTime is taken from fantasy Filipino soap operas or telenovelas, also known as fantaseryes or telefantasya. This genre of Philippine television programming often depicts narratives about cosmology and mythology specific to Filipino culture and history. The three series that have been included in this work portray a myriad of characters including half-human, half-eagle beings in Mulawin (2004-05), mermaids and merfolk in Aryana (2012-13), and shape shifting evil spirits called aswang in Juan Dela Cruz (2013).

With the objective to learn about her cultural heritage and to gain an understanding of this material, Garcia reached out to her aunty, Tita Gigi, who is a dedicated viewer of Filipino soap operas, in order to access Filipino language and folklore. Garcia asked her to transcribe certain scenes, which she then formatted into a script. Following this, the two, communicating via FaceTime, worked on a discursive mode of translating from Tagalog to English. Lastly, Garcia took these translations and conjugated them into future tense, which are offered as takeaway texts.

Caroline Garcia, PrimeTime, series of 3 inkjet takeaway prints on A4 paper, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley. — Caroline Garcia, *PrimeTime*, series of 3 inkjet takeaway prints on A4 paper, 2019. Photography by Zan Wimberley.

PrimeTime oscillates between different languages, both spoken and written, traversing through tenses, whereby the collateral outcome is a strange futuring. The choreographic transliteration is also mirrored in the processing of the moving image that is downloaded from the internet, converted or reencoded, and datamoshed. The collapse of time becomes pixelated, the glitch complicates the logic of translation, and the loss of information both visually and in language parallels the diasporic experience.