Words and images Temporary Frequency and Cede
Editing The Kanto team
“Nothing here is permanent. The signals arrive and linger for a moment before they disappear,” opens the team behind Temporary Frequency, a site-specific new media exhibition at the Celso V. Ledesma House in Iloilo City that forms part of the Bakunawa Fest caravan and its series of exhibitions and screenings around the city.
The exploration is curated by Patrick Jamora and brings five artists, namely Doktor Karayom, Koko Mariano, Kristine Buenavista, spaaawn, and Tara Illenberger, into the former stables of the 104-year-old house, working across moving image, sound, text, projection, and light.
Works by Kristine Buenavista and Koko Mariano
With fantasy at its core, Temporary Frequency begins with a simple idea: fantasy does not have to mean an imaginary world. It can also be the feeling of being taken somewhere else, whether another place, another time, someone else’s experience, or a memory.
Each artist explores a different frequency, opening crossings between worlds, times, cultures, bodies, and signals. Films by Natalia Sheskatova and David Matthews are showcased alongside the installations.
Films on display
Doktor Karayom’s red figures and creatures moved across the walls and horse stall, allowing his strange visual world to briefly enter the architecture of the house. Koko Mariano brought together the body, identity, ritual, ancestry, and technology through a two-channel video installation. Kristine Buenavista staged an exchange between Bakunawa and the Burmese celestial figure Rahu through Hiligaynon and Burmese, moving between ancient myth and contemporary structures of power.
Two independent sound works by spaaawn occupied the same space, changing in relation to the listener’s movement and creating a third experience somewhere between them. Tara Illenberger brought archival footage of dancer Myra Beltran into a new physical and temporal context, presenting the moving image on a small active screen among obsolete technologies.
Works by Koko Mariano and Tara Illenberger
In the library, Bakunawa Fest also presented two international short films: Teatime by David Mathews of Austria and 12 études sur l’éclairage d’un verre d’eau (12 Studies of Lighting a Glass of Water) by Natalia Shestakova of Switzerland. The films were projected from one open wardrobe onto another in an intimate screening setup.
Temporary Frequency follows Signs of Life, the first contemporary art activation at the Celso V. Ledesma House, presented during Heritage Month 2026, a year after the National Historical Commission of the Philippines officially recognized the house as a Heritage House. Together, the projects form an ongoing experiment in what else a 104-year-old house can be, and how new work, audiences, and memories can become part of the continuing life of a heritage space. •
About the Celso V. Ledesma House
Built in 1921–1922, the Celso V. Ledesma House is a century-old residence in Iloilo City. In May 2025, it was officially recognized as a Heritage House by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
Alongside the continued care of the house and its collections, recent projects have explored how a heritage house can remain culturally active rather than simply preserved. Signs of Life brought contemporary sound, video, text, performance, and other interventions into the house, and Temporary Frequency continues that experiment through moving image, sound, projection, text, and digital media.
The aim is not to turn the house into a conventional gallery, but to explore what can happen when new work, new audiences, and new memories are allowed to enter an old place.
Temporary Frequency opened on October 27 and will run until November 15, 2026 at the Celso V. Ledesma House in Iloilo City.
