Words Belarmino and Partners
Images Triangulum
Editing Gabrielle de la Cruz
“Triangulum started as a platform for artists to focus on raw and authentic expression. I started to explore creativity deeply through photography, and that led me to understand how instant and reproducible the medium is,” opens E.S.L. Chen, Triangulum founder and artist. “Photography is an instant and reproducible medium. The digital era has also brought about an environment where we can experiment for little to no cost. Many of us in the group use photography as a tool to explore visual language and to preserve a memory of a subject or a scene.”
From this, Triangulum conceived Free Scan Job, a participatory project that explores portraiture as an encounter. The project invites people to sit for a face scan, a contemporary portrait captured manually through a document scanner, then printed and hand-drawn with playful lines. Participants are free to take their portraits home.
The project originates from Copies of Copies, a collaboration between Chen, Frelan “Pakz” Gonzaga, and Jonathan Baldonado. It was developed through iterations at Art Fair Philippines 2024 and the PAF Intersections Art Summit 2025 in Bangkok.
From August 2 to 10, the collective will bring Free Scan Job to George Town Festival 2025, engaging passersby in moments of exchange and image-making. This time, people will be invited to contribute their portraits to a community mural, transforming the act of making into a communal experience. “The mural that emerges is not simply installed; it will be assembled, layered, and shaped by those who pause, participate, and co-create.”
Free Scan Job at George Town Festival 2025 will be the second installment of FOR THE LAB, a pop-up exhibition series by Belarmino&Partners, jointly organised with Art Lane and ChinaHouse. Created as a platform for artistic experimentation, FOR THE LAB explores how a single work can evolve through subject, material, and form.
Prior to the festival, independent curator Vanini Belarmino spoke with Chen about Free Scan Job‘s unfolding, what it means to create art in public, and what ideas lie behind Triangulum‘s simple yet quietly radical process.
Face scan and Triangulum portrait of Maloi Ricalde
Vanini Belarmino, independent curator: When we first met in Bacolod three years ago, you were participating in Orange Project’s artist residency. I recall that you were part of the Fotomoto team, whose been doing fantastic work in organizing and highlighting photography as practice. We also had the chance to catch up during the two editions of ArtFair Philippines, which, in my mind, was an impressive move for artists early in their careers to jumpstart an artist collective in an environment where structural support is somewhat limited. At the same time, embark on an artistic process and engage with a medium that’s perhaps less lucrative: displaying labor and giving away presents – in this case, the hand-drawn portraits from the face scans of Free Scan Job.
Can you take more about Triangulum’s beginnings and what drew you to working with photography, print, and public participation as your core materials?
E.S.L Chen: One of the realities we have all been facing, especially in recent years, is the power of social media. People are always on their phones and sharing things online. Therefore, using the physical print is both a boon and a curse. What if people are only interested in the work we make to share it on social media? What if the work we make is not as important as the attention it generates? However, we thought that people are always looking to be part of something, and if we can provide that through involving them in our artistic processes, and in turn, educate them about art, then so be it.
People are also fatigued by photography or images. There is no question about it because most of us see hundreds, if not thousands, of individual images everyday. This is what led us to using the physical print and drawing on it as a way to break this pattern. There is a unique feeling that is attained when a participant can hold a piece of art in their hands after seeing how it was made in real time. The memory of those moments might be more important to the individual than the piece itself.
We each have our practices. Lately, we have all become multi-disciplinary as a result of working together despite having very defined self-assigned roles during the early phases of the group’s formation. It wasn’t until late 2024 that we started to see Triangulum as a single unit.
It might sound peculiar, but the glue that bonds us together is the desire to act. Less talk, more doing. Triangulum is the name of a black hole. Perhaps, the center of our black hole as a group is the desire to be raw and authentic, and the medium or the gravitational pull is action.
Face scan and Triangulum portraits of artist Kidlat Tahimik and Art Fair Philippines co-founder Lisa Ongpin-Periquet
What attracted you to the face scanner as your tool for portraiture? How does this method reshape the usual experience of having one’s image captured?
The resulting portraits evoke a sense of a bygone era. The sitters appear ethereal, almost as if their souls have been captured. The scanner strangely feels personal. The glass capturing the subject’s face is only centimeters away. People are accustomed to maintaining distance from the medium. By being so close, it somewhat gives the impression of escaping the real world and entering a contemplative mood.
Physical printing and hand-drawn interventions are central to your process. In a world dominated by digital images and automation, what possibilities do you see in this tactile, manual approach?
Maybe there are no further possibilities. Perhaps the purpose of our process of producing scanned portraits is to be vulnerable and express human creativity. The performative aspect is also special. The idea of being in the moment: waiting, seeing, and experiencing, is just irreplaceable for us and the participants.
Face scan and Triangulum portrait of Barbie Almalbis
You’ve presented Free Scan Job in Manila, Bacolod, and Bangkok. How did these locations shape your experience of the project? As a collective, what have you learned from the project so far?
We go where people welcome us with open arms; no strings attached. The locations themselves may or may not be as important as the surrounding community. Without the participation and support of the public, Free Scan Job simply cannot happen or work.
In Bangkok, we allowed the participants to intervene with their portraits as a test. However, this created a logistical problem, as there were not enough workspaces for everyone involved. It became obvious that the solo intervention of all prints, which was part of Copies of Copies, made the most sense. The spectacle of the artists working drew a lot of attention and curiosity from the public.
In Penang, you’re inviting strangers to contribute their faces to a collective mural—a portrait of the city itself. How do you imagine this evolving in Penang’s context, both in terms of visual form and community response? What are you most looking forward to on this trip?
The most interesting aspect of Penang is the dichotomy between heritage and transience. The collective mural becomes a stamp of our experience at that specific point in time. That includes the people who participate, the food we eat, the places we visit, and the things we see. What we’re most excited about is that this is the first time that we’re doing a Free Scan Job in a structured way, where there is planning and gracious hosts involved.
Face scan and Triangulum portraits of Unique Salonga and Kitkat Zobel
You give participants a printed portrait but keep the scans for your mural. What kinds of conversations has this opened about ownership, participation, and authorship? As a collective, how do you navigate the ethics and outcomes of working with people’s faces in this way?
We have not yet considered the practical implications of working in this manner. However, we approach the idea of ownership, participation, and authorship using the lens of social contracts. Some people are surprised by us giving away free art, but this serves as our payment for the participation of all those involved. Those waiting in line and giving us their time are our payment as artists. Their patience fuels our labour.
In the future, however, we are considering using an online method to collect release forms from participants, allowing us to freely use the scanned intervened portraits as material for other projects.
Face scan and Triangulum portrait of drag artist Pura Luka Vega
Your process is quite performative, where duration and endurance are key. People watch as you scan faces, draw, and build your mural. How important is visible labour in your artistic practice? Did you think of it this way?
The goal of this work is to enable people to see the entire process. It takes them out of their typical day, which involves being on their devices and going through their routines. When art became democratised, the most visible types of art in terms of exposure became the most loved— music, film, and the like. But, slowly, commercialisation always blunts the purity of any art. It could be that people yearn to commune with the divine, and that artists of all types can become that conduit to something profound. Giving away a personalised piece for free is our expression of a return to purity.
There are always people who scoff at art and say that they can paint or draw like any artist. The display of endurance is a way to prove that practising art is not as easy as it seems. To see an artist keep going for hours hacking away at that assumption. It’s also a personal challenge to each of us involved. It’s a way for us to communicate that we can indeed practice art.
From Copies of Copies to Free Scan Job, you’ve explored themes of repetition and difference. How do these ideas continue to shape your thinking and work as artists?
We discuss constant evolution within the group. We’ve also discussed the idea of practising little departures instead of grand ones. The repetition and subtle differences are ways for us to train our brains to never stop exploring.
To wrap this up, tell us what’s next for Triangulum. Where do you see yourself taking Free Scan Job? Or should I say, where do you think this project will take you next?
We have discussed and thought about future plans. For instance, when and where do we stop doing Free Scan Job? Do we change the subjects? Do we change the methods used? For the immediate future, we want to bring this project in its current form to other countries.
Although nothing is certain yet, we are eyeing South Korea and Germany for 2026. However, one thing is for sure: Triangulum remains committed to bringing Filipino art and ideas to the world. •
