Missing Posters

24/10/2018

I have received private messages of people resonating with the project. People telling me how the project made them stop and think of the way they are dealing with themselves and others and how they were able to reflect on their daily practices. Various realizations were shared—some shared they have realised how materialistic and shallow they have become and how that adds to their discontentment, others shared that they’ve become more appreciative of little things. Most realised that their most precious moments were moments with family or friends or with themselves.

I am very much overwhelmed with how these posters are touching the fringes of other people’s lives by making them stop and think, even for just a moment, how they are manipulated to being unhappy because it’s a state that drives an ego-centred society.

Sharing with you a comment exchange from fellow artists, Renz Israel Botero🙂♥️

24/10/2018

Thank you for sharing your happy moments. This project open to collaborations! PM your experiences, photos, or ideas! ♥️

15/10/2018

15/10/2018

“Binuang ni te? Binuang ninte no?!”

15/10/2018

Carbon Area
“Kanus-a ra ni siya nawala day? Mag amigo ni sila? O mag igsuon?”

08/10/2018

In search of happiness.

27/09/2018

Mango, Cebu City
We walked for nine hours, Soikee and I. Armed with hundreds of prints and a bucket of paste. We met around 2pm and we continued to work until 2am. We were deadbeat tired and we are not even done yet. We will have to go to precincts another day. We continuosly labored, only stopping twice for beers and then for energy drinks. But what really kept us going was how people hovered, asked, and proposed narratives as to why these “people” are missing. They must be in the province, they said. They must have found a new job and doesn’t want to be found, they mused. Are they friends? Are they family? Are they sane? —-some read and sort of comprehended that the posters are not what they seem. Then their questions shifted. kalipay, what kind of name is that!? Are you serious? Is this a joke? Never thought, the search for happiness would be this interesting 🙂

27/09/2018

MPos is a photographic project of people’s retrospective memory of their last happy moment in the form of “missing posters”.

These missing posters are to be posted in public spaces and in police bulletin boards in the aim to initiate a visual dialogue about how the system we belong to promotes individualism and consumerism that drives people to be unhappy.

In my interactions as I photograph, my subjects were almost always not sure how to answer the question “when were you last (genuinely) happy?” The answers vary but all were personal as they try to remember when they last laughed wholeheartedly.

The posters will feature different people. In the posters you will see a photo of a person smiling/laughing. Under the pictures are their respective ages and their “last seen” information. But unlike the regular missing persons posters, “last seen” will inform you that it’s not the person that’s missing. But rather these posters are asking you to help look for this one common trivial thing that we seem to have a hard time finding—- happiness.