→ 2024—2025
“Soil-beings (Lamánlupa) honors soil as the central element of architectural understanding,” the NCCA says it “invites the public to sense soil not merely as a component of construction but as a kin and life force integral to existence.”
Philippine Pavilion 2025
Venice, IT
Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)
Office of Senator Loren Legarda
Cur. Renan Laru-an
Art. Christian Tenefrancia Illi
The Terrarium does not present soil as an inert backdrop to human life but as a dynamic force, a space of motion and interaction, absorbing and releasing histories, ecologies, and affects.
Soil is never still. It shifts, breathes, erodes, replenishes, and transforms. What appears as solid ground beneath our feet is a vortex—an endless spiral of movement, decay, and renewal.
In this way, soil is not a fixed object but a process, always in motion, shifting with weather, climate, extraction, agriculture, and war. It is moved by wind, shaped by water, compacted under colonial infrastructures, and displaced by urban expansion. It is inhaled as dust in factories and expelled as toxic sediments into rivers.