It’s Still Life

Paola Germar

February 28 — March 16, 2021

Kaida Contemporary
45 Scout Madriñan St., South Triangle, 1103 Quezon City, Philippines

A sun-casted shadow starts off as a distinguishable shape with its curves and angles all recognizable. As the sun goes down, the shadow grows and shapeshifts as it engulfs other surfaces in its shade. The shadow is no longer a trusted identifier yet it can still mimic its owner. Eventually, a shadow mends with the darkness of night and gets lost until light comes again.

Time passes like a shadow growing as the sun sets, it is still but moves at the same time; seconds melt into minutes, into hours, melt into days, and before you know it, you’re still watching your ONE favorite movie but now celebrating another revolution around the sun. How many new hobbies have you picked up in that single revolution – the single stretch of time that feels just as long as it is short. The stillness of everyday life quickly turns new hobbies into repetitive addictions that exist just to consume time into the unknown future. Every calendar date is a gamble for a good day that is frozen in time. With a stroke of luck, you’ll land on a lucky number, but how lucky is luck if it’s not often? Would doing the same things from a lucky day on another day replicate the luck experienced? Repeated days become routine-like traps that blur the distinction between hobby and addiction. There could be hope in the present that luck will continue but it’s blissful ignorance to think that there is no threat of transformation into underlying anxiety. But even so, we are drawn to ambiguity because it allows us to believe in what we want to – in what we need to, for us to live in time that moves even when it feels still.

Words by Bianca Germar

Virtual exhibit