Studio Arts Classes by Doc G

19/03/2026

Some MADE guidelines that can help students think of works you would like to be collected or kept in an institutional repository

08/07/2025

Please support the mini-thesis exhibit entirely initiated by UP Cebu Third Year Studio Arts students at the Rizal Public Library and Museum. See the exhibit and ask them about their mini-thesis journey. Learn from their growth.

The mini-thesis is a capstone project including art production plates and a mini-thesis manuscript on the student’s Third Year in the BFA Studio Arts Program or a culmination of the student’s Certificate in Fine Arts. Courses for the mini-thesis were administered by Professor Dennis “Sio” Montera (lead faculty and Studio Arts Coordinator) and Associate Professor Laya B. Gonzales or “Doc G” (TFA 187 Art Theory II). The mini-thesis was defended before panelists composed of formidable Studio Arts faculty: Associate Prof Shane Carreon, Dean of CCAD; Assistant Professor Ivy Apa, Assistant Professor Nomar Miano, Ms. Gabi Nazareno Vano, and Mr. Khriss Bajade, who all gave insightful comments.

Congratulations to our dear visionaries. And good job for strengthening the industry presence of the Studio Arts Program!

𝙃𝙪𝙜𝙠𝙖𝙩 — to unearth, to unravel.

Through delicate labor and raw vulnerability, AkuliktiB dares to bring to light what often remains unseen: stories, beliefs, and emotions shaped by sincere artistic truth. This is more than an exhibit — it’s a collective act of sincere artistic labor.

📍 𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘂𝗲: Rizal Memorial Library & Museum Building, Osmeña Blvd, Cebu City
🎉 𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗮𝘆: July 14, 2025
📅 𝗘𝘅𝗵𝗶𝗯𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝘂𝗻: July 14 – July 28, 2025

We invite you to witness what we have unearthed — expressive, imperfect, and real.

30/06/2025

Congratulations to APRIL for being the class valedictorian of the UP Cebu Studio Arts Program!

Congratulations too on a well-defended and rigorously prepared BFA Thesis.

"Phygital Hijacking: Place-Based, Creative Intervention"
by April Babaran and Miles Canon
TFA 197 Special Topics (Asso Prof. Gonzales)
Fine Arts Studio Arts Program
CCAD UP Cebu

"This project is a collaboration of Miles Canon and April Babaran. “Yarn bombing” is a form of street art that uses knitted or crocheted yarn to cover objects in public spaces. Through this tactile intervention, April introduces color, texture, and a sense of whimsy into otherwise rigid and monotonous urban environments. In this collaboration, she activates the gated community of Casa Mira South in Naga, Cebu — an area predominantly inhabited by middle-class residents. By wrapping parts of this private, controlled space in yarn, she subtly challenges its boundaries and routines, infusing it with softness and unpredictability. In parallel, Miles' project utilizes Augmented Reality (AR) to project videos into the same environment, offering a digital layer of engagement that complements the physical yarn installations. While April’s work disrupts space through material presence, Miles' engages with its invisible dimensions — overlaying narratives, visuals, or data that reframe how the site is perceived and experienced. Together, their works explore different modalities of intervention, one analog and tactile, the other digital and ephemeral, inviting viewers to reflect on how art can transform both the physical and virtual aspects of everyday life."

Read More:
https://medium.com//phygital-hijacking-place-based-creative-intervention-in-casa-mira-south-a753516c9a03

https://medium.com//phygital-hijacking-place-based-creative-intervention-in-casa-mira-south-miles-4db64b45e89f

21/06/2025

"KINAMOT is a Visayan word for using hands. It serves as the title and central metaphor of this project, highlighting the use of hands in both the act of survival and the act of play. Through the act of casting hands, this project explores themes of presence, agency, visibility, and human connection. Set in the peripheries of the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu, KINAMOT becomes a space not just for creation, but for conversation, play, and reclamation.

The goal of the project was to create a space for interaction and co-creation. While open to everyone, it particularly centered on children who live on the peripheries of the Basilica—individuals often unseen or excluded from public and cultural narratives. By casting their own hands using plaster of Paris bandages, the participants were given a platform to express agency and to assert presence. In this sense, the project was a symbolic and literal act of visibility. It provided a space where these children were not merely observed but listened to, not passively represented but actively engaged. The hands they cast were not just forms—they became records of contact and collaboration.

The use of plaster of Paris bandages was intentional. Their immediacy, tactility, and symbolic weight were central to the experience. The material captures fine detail and sets quickly—inviting spontaneity, play, and vulnerability. The inner surfaces of the cast recall the warmth and texture of skin; the outer shell reflects a hardened fragility. Both surfaces, internal and external, are metaphorically rich: bearing signs of fragility, precarity, and strength.

KINAMOT does not claim a messianic message. It does not promise salvation or offer a grand solution. It is grounded in the quiet humanism of shared presence and simple acts of creation. It finds meaning in small gestures: a hand offered, a cast shared, a moment of being seen.

This project is not about rescuing anyone—it is about standing beside them, noticing them, listening to them, and letting them shape how they want to be remembered."

Collaboration of Patrick Rosell and Gerald Chua
TFA 197 Special Topics
BFA Studio Arts
University of the Philippines Cebu

Read more:
https://readymag.website/u3712358405/5584973/3/?authuser=0

https://medium.com/.chua/kinamot-a-participatory-place-based-creative-intervention-d1c89a734ec1

Conducted just outside the Minor Basilica of the Santo Niño de Cebu, the project invited children — most of whom are Badjao and…

19/06/2025

You’ve just arrived at a neighborhood party you don’t remember being invited into. Yet, the lights are bright and colorful, the music loud and blaring, the handa just looks almost right. But one breath, and it’s gone. Like it was never real. It was never there. Or was it?

In Dili Ingon Nato, you and your friends are suddenly trapped in a mysterious neighborhood party. A celebration that blurs the line between what’s real, and what isn’t. Your goal is to survive the night, and leave the party by avoiding the Dili Ingon Nato, the entity that lurks among the cards that could trap you forever into the unknown.

Will you leave before it’s too late? Or will you join the party forever?

"Dili Ingon Nato" was conceptualized and illustrated by Akira Agravante & Kirah Bahena for Phil Arts class (Studio Arts block) under Doc G.

"Urban legends continue as long as life stays on Earth. They’re essentially a modern/contemporary take on storytelling. Showcasing the evolution of myths and legends, folklore is shared around through modern media and community sharing. In a country like the Philippines, where community and social ties run deep in our culture, stories shared in communities such as urban legends have this particular significance that’s reflective of our very society. These stories shared across generations be it myths, legends, any type of folklore, reflect the collective imagination of the Filipino community. Almost like a hive mind, where Filipinos continue to engage with the different emotional exchange. Conveying their fears, worries, joys, and moral lessons of the community. Filipinos process life through this very manifestation, through folklore itself. By incorporating these types of familiar stories into gameplay, we not only create an engaging experience but also celebrate this very culture in a way that feels familiar, relatable, and entertaining. One that’s adapted for the modern era. The chosen supernatural elements and tension around this very urban legend also sort of mirrors that certain uncertainty in Filipino folklore, where the boundary between reality and what’s not reality is often blurring and unclear."

In contemporary art, ludic principles manifest in game-based procedural aesthetics emphasizes gameplay structures, player choices, and the internal logic of play. Akira and Kirah use a scenario not only to encourage play but to safeguard intangibles -- folk beliefs, language, and worldview.

See you at CCAD Studio Arts this August 2025. Let's play!

18/06/2025

"WIP"
by Miguel Chavez and Yuka Kakutsuji
TFA 197 Special Topics

"This project is a socially engaged pop-up market centered on the experiences of working student artists. Designed as both a creative platform and a site of support, the market offered student artists the opportunity to sell their original works, share their practices, and connect with their community. Inspired by our own background as Fine Arts students from the University of the Philippines—where many artists sustain their practice through collectives and pop-up events—we sought to create a space that affirms the realities of balancing work and art-making. Held during the opening of our exhibit at the Courtyard at Atua Midtown, the event foregrounded collaboration, visibility, and care, transforming a public space into a temporary site of empowerment, dialogue, and artistic exchange."

Read more https://workinprogress168.wordpress.com/2025/06/02/wip-a-creative-project/

16/06/2025

"Phygital Hijacking: Place-Based, Creative Intervention"
by April Babaran and Miles Canon
TFA 197 Special Topics (Asso Prof. Gonzales)
Fine Arts Studio Arts Program
CCAD UP Cebu

"This project is a collaboration of Miles Canon and April Babaran. “Yarn bombing” is a form of street art that uses knitted or crocheted yarn to cover objects in public spaces. Through this tactile intervention, April introduces color, texture, and a sense of whimsy into otherwise rigid and monotonous urban environments. In this collaboration, she activates the gated community of Casa Mira South in Naga, Cebu — an area predominantly inhabited by middle-class residents. By wrapping parts of this private, controlled space in yarn, she subtly challenges its boundaries and routines, infusing it with softness and unpredictability. In parallel, Miles' project utilizes Augmented Reality (AR) to project videos into the same environment, offering a digital layer of engagement that complements the physical yarn installations. While April’s work disrupts space through material presence, Miles' engages with its invisible dimensions — overlaying narratives, visuals, or data that reframe how the site is perceived and experienced. Together, their works explore different modalities of intervention, one analog and tactile, the other digital and ephemeral, inviting viewers to reflect on how art can transform both the physical and virtual aspects of everyday life."

Read More:
https://medium.com//phygital-hijacking-place-based-creative-intervention-in-casa-mira-south-a753516c9a03

https://medium.com//phygital-hijacking-place-based-creative-intervention-in-casa-mira-south-miles-4db64b45e89f

11/06/2025

11/06/2025

"Rice and Bullets"
by Karl Furog and Arwen Villaflor
BFA Studio Arts Program, CCAD UP Cebu
for Philippine Arts GE (under Associate Professor L.B. Gonzales)

The animated short film is a thought-provoking interpretation of H.R. Ocampo’s short story “Rice and Bullets.” It tells the story of a father, striving to feed his starving family, who joins in collective action amongst the townsfolk to plead their need for food and protest against repressive state forces. The protest takes a tragic turn. As a creative retelling, the animated film respects the original source material by following the story beats of Ocampo’s writing, while also adding interpretations that enrich the original context of the narrative. It employs a neorealist visual style to depict character and background design, as well as creative movement and motion to bring the scenes to life.

Bravo, Karl and Arwen!
See less

11/06/2025

"Silaw"
By Andrei Borlasa and Edward Romero
TFA 197 Special Topics
BFA Studio Arts Program, CCAD, UP Cebu

This audiovisual piece is made of Marine epoxy as the base material for the sculpture. It is embedded with collaged photos of the various nightlife establishments which were taken during our ocular visit to the site in F.Cabahug street. The three-dimensionality of this project and the collage aspect of the work stems from the art practices of the artist researchers who also aim to further widen and develop their artistic expression. Moreover, with the crucial roles played by the elements of light and sound in expressing androgyny and q***r representation among public environments and spaces, we incorporated these elements onto the artwork itself. This creative project aims to enhance the vitality of clubs and bars that targets the general audience while seeking to create a safer space for the q***r community to indulge in this form of night entertainment. Thus, enhancing the vibrancy and inclusivity of the club and bar dominated area.

https://q***rcreatives0.wordpress.com/2025/06/02/silaw-audiovisuals-on-the-nightlife-scene-of-f-cabahug-street/ SILAW: AUDIOVISUALS ON THE NIGHTLIFE SCENE OF F.CABAHUG STREET – q***rcreatives

A CREATIVE PROJECT About the Project This audiovisual piece is made of Marine epoxy as the base material for the sculpture. It is embedded with collaged photos of the various nightlife establishmen…