SAN ANTONIO, ZAMBALES—Along the coasts of Zambales, the image of Filipino fishers heading out to sea has long been etched into the nation’s collective imagination: small boats moving toward the thin seam where water meets sky, carrying with them stories of survival, uncertainty and hope.
It is an image that resurfaces whenever national conversations turn to territorial integrity and sovereignty, as these fishers navigate waters marked by contested islands and shifting boundaries, guided only by the reach of their vision.
This image of the horizon, or “Abot-tanaw,” forms the conceptual core of Zambulat, the latest and the most expansive iteration of the annual art festival at Casa San Miguel in this town.
Curated by writer and cultural worker Ryan Cezar Alcarde, the festival opened in December last year and runs through Feb. 14.
Zambulat brings together more than 100 artists and cultural workers from across Luzon—including Baguio, Tarlac, Quezon, Laguna, Manila and Zambales—in its first large-scale convergence of its kind.
Visitors are welcomed by “Nest,” a sound installation that immediately sets a contemplative tone, quietly preparing them for what lies ahead: an exhibition that asks audiences to listen closely, look slowly, and reflect deeply on place, memory and community.
Photography
As visitors step further inside the galleries, images begin to surface. Cyanotype prints “Sa Lukong ng mga Palad” (In the Hollow of Palms) emerge in soft blues and shadows, exploring the limits of human grasp through photography and deliberate obscurity.
It sit alongside the ongoing residency project “Personal Histories: Searching for Maria,” which traces fragmented narratives of a figure named Maria Caramot through the stories of Zambales residents.
Nearby, “Tambayan: Archiving Community Memory of Sound” draws attention back to listening. Recorded moments of shared presence, emphasizing that sound not merely as background, but as an archive and communal experience.
At the heart of Zambulat, Alcarde’s curatorial note anchors the exhibition’s conceptual core, presenting horizon as a creative space where boundaries dissolve and new futures can be imagined.
In his note, Alcarde writes: “The word ‘tanaw’ evokes both sight and imagination, beginning with what can be seen, weighed and touched, yet extending into a shifting social terrain shaped by human movement and history.”
Early map
“The hyphen in ‘abot-tanaw’—the pause between looking and becoming—becomes a breath that opens creative possibility, allowing identities and futures to remain within reach,” he adds.
Within the direct line of sight of the curatorial note is “Craft Mine Craft,” a mixed-media piece referencing the historic Murillo-Velarde map, one of the earliest maps of the Philippines.
By foregrounding contested territories such as Scarborough Shoal, the piece grounds the notion of the horizon in lived geopolitical realities.
Moving through the space, “Seasonal Adversities” reflecting on the country’s deep entanglement with storms speak quietly of vulnerability and resilience.
Nearby, student artworks from the Philippine High School for the Arts highlight Casa San Miguel’s long-standing partnership with arts education and youth formation, while works by Zambales-based artists—including members of local collectives and partners of community-oriented organizations—reinforce the festival’s emphasis on regional voices.
Upon entering a darkened room, moving images pull visitors closer. “Tangle of Sea Hands” explores the labor of fishing and “Lumalapit, Lumalayo” (Drawing Near, Drifting Away) tells the shifting memories of San Miguel’s coastline.
There is also the interactive new media piece “Twinning Machine” that confronts viewers with an “antimirror,” challenging ideas of reflection and self-recognition.”
Collaboration
Upstairs, “Panatag: Subjective Atlas of the Philippines” presents a participatory research project mapping lived experiences from the towns of San Antonio and Masinloc, developed through collaborations with academic institutions and international publishing platforms.
Works from Project Space Pilipinas in Lucban, Quezon, underscore sustained collaboration with traditional artisans, including weaving cooperatives rooted in local knowledge.
Archival materials from Casa San Miguel are paired with the film “Choreographing the Archives,” weaving personal and institutional histories through movement and memory.
Another immersive section, ”Ghost Ships,” pairs dimly lit engravings on acrylic sheets with audio interviews narrating the daily lives and risks faced by Zambales fisherfolk, inviting viewers to sit with stories often left at the margins.
A solo exhibition titled “Silab” follows, marking a return to art-making rooted in experimentation and place, drawing inspiration from communal fishing practices such as “daklis.”
Community participation remains central throughout the exhibition. “Hawla,” an installation created by persons deprived of liberty from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology Olongapo District Jail through a workshop, stands beside “The Revival of an OFW’s Home,” expanding the conversation to themes of confinement, displacement and return.
Overhead, the participatory installation “Awaten ti langit” (The sky receives) invites visitors to fold their wishes into cyanotype origami cranes, slowly forming a collective offering suspended in space.
As visitors make their way outside, the exhibition’s final gestures linger. Works from the Talaib Arts Projects of Tarlac are displayed, including pottery and traditional Ayta tools, and outdoor installations such as “Liberty,” a monument and a mirror that reimagines a familiar global icon through the lens of postcolonial memory and contemporary resistance.
A whale tail sculpture made from scrap metal—an environmental reminder that lingers as visitors exit, echoed the exhibition’s call to imagine shared futures grounded in care, memory and collective responsibility.
As Alcarde notes, the horizon is not a passive line of sight but an invitation: “The drive to move beyond the window, to cross the horizon, is rooted in the very act of making. Art becomes not merely a reflection, but a collective gesture toward what lies just beyond sight.”
For some, that horizon is anxiety shaped by images of social fracture; for others, it lies in the tactile world of clay, buri and archives, or in shifting winds, mountain foothills and coastlines.
Zambulat unites these vantage points through a shared urgency: the desire to move beyond the window, to imagine the Filipino story as one that extends, bends and flows across both land and sea, memory and possibility.—JOANNA ROSE AGLIBOT