This year, we invited artists, collectives, and cultural workers to submit proposals for the ESC Open Call: Space Grant. It is a program by 98B COLLABoratory that offers free exhibition space and production support in Escolta, Manila. The open call is one of the evolutions of the ESC Project.
The call focused on creating opportunities for spatial intervention in unconventional venues. We welcomed a wide range of proposals, whether they were ideas still in formation, projects in progress, quiet gestures, community-led actions, or fully realized works. Our goal was to hold space for creative exploration in how art occupies and activates non-traditional spaces. Grantees were selected to present their work inside Escolta’s First United Building as well as Escolta, with curatorial and logistical support, modest production assistance, and a chance to engage with the larger Escolta community.
For this cycle, we selected three exhibitions that each approached space and storytelling differently through ecology, imagination, and slowing down.
Installation view: Mae Aguinaldo-Mapa’s "Taghiyawat na Tinubuan ng Mukha" at the Air well, Third Floor, First United Building.
Metro Montage Collective presents Dahon-Dahan, a group exhibition that plays with the dual meaning of “dahan-dahan” (slowly) and “dahon” (leaf). Featuring 32 works by 15 artists, the show invites audiences to consider the subtle rhythms of plants and the gestures of care found in everyday life. The exhibition includes paintings, digital works, collages, and photographs, alongside workshops and conversations on ecology, healing, and mindful attention.
Metro Montage Collective during the opening of their exhibit "Dahon-Dahan" at the First United Building Community Museum.
Mae Aguinaldo-Mapa’s Taghiyawat na Naging Nunal grows out of doodles, playful sketches, and imagined beings. What began as drawings becomes soft sculpture—creatures that don’t quite belong in the real world but feel oddly close. Installed in corners, shadows, or odd nooks, these sculptures are then documented photographically. Visitors are invited to co-create by offering names, stories, or reactions to these mysterious forms, blurring the line between author and audience.
An AR/VR image from "Field Notes from a Mossy Forest" by Curtis Cresswell and Mica Cabildo appears in one of the Regina Building’s hallways.
Curtis Cresswell and Mica Cabildo’s Field notes from a mossy forest / Nodiadau maes o goedwig fwsoglyd builds a conversation between two ancient ecosystems—Philippine cloud forests and Celtic rainforests in Wales. Drawing from site visits to Mt. Apo and Mt. Makiling, and research in Snowdonia and Meirionnydd, the project gathers sound, image, text, and personal observations into twin installations across Escolta and Corris. Part walk, part archive, the project is an immersive attempt to hold space for ecological memory across places and time. The project is supported by 98B COLLABoratory and the British Council’s Connections Through Culture grant.
