The Benilde Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) in Culture-Based Arts merges Fine Arts studio practice with deep engagement in Philippine cultural traditions. This pioneering program at DLS-CSB’s School of Arts, Culture, and Performance (SACP) is built on the philosophy of creating art that is both aesthetically and socially relevant. Students immerse themselves in local communities, directly learning and referencing indigenous materials and historical context to inform their contemporary creations. The goal is to cultivate artists who are also cultural innovators and informed practitioners, creating purposeful work that revitalizes and advocates for Filipino heritage on a global stage.
Exhibitions and Activities
SONDER
SONDER is an exhibition inspired by the quiet, profound realization that every passerby lives a life as vivid and intricate as one’s own. The show invites viewers into that feeling — of coexistence, empathy, and unseen complexity. Through colorful windows into fleeting moments, the exhibit captures that ephemeral truth: that each face, each gesture, each silence holds a universe of stories.
Featuring works across realism, impressionism, and mixed media, SONDER is a mosaic of shared emotions and unseen narratives. It honors the ordinary — a glance, a pause, a laugh — as a vessel for connection, reminding us that we are never truly alone in our human experience.
Curatorial Theme
The curatorial direction of SONDER revolves around the idea of windows — both literal and metaphorical portals through which we observe others and, at times, glimpse ourselves. These windows may take the form of a camera lens, the frame of our eyeglasses, the view from a passing train, or even the human eye itself — often called the window to the soul. Through these frames, the artists offer fragments of lives both lived and observed: glimpses of quiet routines, sudden emotion, fleeting gestures, or passing strangers. Each work becomes a testimony to a moment witnessed and remembered, filtered through the unique lens of the artist. In this way, the exhibition invites viewers to peek into intimate stories, sometimes imagined, sometimes real — but all deeply human. Though expressed through diverse mediums and visual styles, the pieces are united by a shared sensitivity: a colorful, expressive tone and a desire to evoke empathy, awareness, and recognition of the quiet universes unfolding all around us.
MANLILIKHA
MANLILIKHA will be an open-theme, open-media exhibition showcasing the works of the students of the Benilde Fine Arts in Culture-Based Arts.
Open Workshop
A public program in the form of an art workshop will be conducted on February 8, from 1:00–4:00 PM, at the Benilde Fine Arts booth. The workshop will be open to all Luneta Art Fair attendees.
The flashes of color you’re allowed the privilege of meeting for a moment in a stranger’s life. How sonder arrived to me was in my dalliances with the city late at night and into the early morning. It wasn’t just people’s lives, but the world itself seemed to respond in sympathetic fashion. Like their breath and energy bled through, making the surroundings their own.
Rain Basco
This series sought to capture the conflicting emotions one can have after the feeling of sonder—after the recognition that no one has exactly experienced life as you did, and therefore you won’t experience what others have lived through as well. People all have different paths and trajectories, though it’s all concurrent and continuous. We cannot experience what comes before nor what comes after for another person, especially the strangers we happen to share the same spaces with. Drawing from both the individual and collective experience, I wanted to encapsulate this unseen aspect of sonder through fragments of motion and stillness to show the suspension of moments that we share, while making known the lived experiences that make up a person through threads to illustrate just how much we cannot fully know each other from a mere glance.
Moira De Jesus
Ingat, isang unibersal na salitang binibigkas tuwing tayo’y namamaalam — isang paalala ng pag-aalala at pagkilala sa hiwalay na mga landas na tatahakin. Mula sa loob ng sasakyan, nasisilayan ang sonder: ang sandaling pagdampi ng mga buhay na sabay-sabay umaandar. Sa mga salamin at bintana, lumilitaw ang mgapigurang hinuhubog ng galaw at distansya. Sa bawat repleksyon at dungaw, ipinapaalala ang bawat taong nakakasalubong natin ay may sariling kwento, bigat, at pinanggagalingan. Tulad ng isang biyahe, ang ating mga buhay ay may kanya-kanyang destinasyon, at sa bawat pag-alis, ang ingat ay nagiging tahimik napagkilala sa pagkakaiba at pagkakaugnay ng ating mga daan.
Katherene Laurel
I wanted to depict the journey of Sonder in which daring to take a step out of your own space takes you through a path of curiosity and enlightenment. It essentially makes us finally recognize that the world is full of various intricate narratives, different from our own. As faces get clearer, so does our understanding of how vast life is and what it has to offer. This never-ending curiosity we may experience through our lives helps us connect more with reality and those who experience it.
Thea Lopez
Real Eyes, Realize is an abstract mixed-media reflection on how our eyes are the windows through which we encounter the feeling of sonder. The butterfly form becomes a pair of focused eyes, suggesting the act of watching and becoming aware of lives beyond our own. On closer inspection, the piece reveals micro-butterflies within the form, each with their own eyes — echoing the idea that every individual carries their own unseen world. The work speaks to the quiet power of observation, where simply looking becomes a form of connection. In this way, the piece not only represents sonder, but also becomes a witness to the stories captured throughout the exhibition.
Carmela Marfori
To me, sonder is the realization that other people have lived full and complete lives removed from my own. I wanted to explore that through the idea of memory, place, and time. I wanted to illustrate my feeling of sonder extending towards the people where I live, the people where I don’t live, and to the people when I haven’t yet lived.
Gillian Ngo
These works explore sonder through my everyday experiences of family, movement, and urban life. “Para sa Kanila” is dedicated to my late grandfather, honoring the quiet sacrifices and enduring labor he gave to his family. “Gagabihin”, draws from my experience of going home late, capturing the shared stillness and solitude of night commutes. “Kwento sa Bawat Ilaw” visualizes the idea that every illuminated window contains a life as layered and complex as my own. Together, these works reflect how our lives remain deeply personal while continuously intersecting with others.
Astrid Z
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