20/04/2026
"Without a Murmur" is MCAD's third exhibition of 2013—and its first all-Filipino show, which opened on 7 November 2013. The exhibition brings together four artists: Lani Maestro (b. 1957), Maria Taniguchi (b. 1981), At Maculangan (b. 1965), and Roderico Jose Daroy (b. 1954).
Lani Maestro presents three works: "her region" (sound installation, 2006/2012), "mon afrique" (installation with video, 2006/2012), and "cine-ma" (installation with rear projection, DVD, 2007/2012). Maestro spent ten days in Manila overseeing the installation of her works and engaged with programs at the School of Design and Arts. In MCAD's first-ever performative talk held on 10 November, she read texts from her work "her abandon," accompanied by Jayvee del Rosario of the University of Santo Tomas on drums. The texts originally installed to enclose a gallery space abroad—were here surrounded not by walls, but by listeners seated in a semi-circle.
Maria Taniguchi's "Figure Study" (earthenware clay, 1080p HD video, monitor, plywood, 2012) is part of a larger ongoing project. The 37-minute video shows two men digging for clay in Zamboanguita, a town 28 kilometers from Dumaguete in Negros Oriental, where Taniguchi was born. The video includes a ten-minute segment of complete darkness. Arranged horizontally in the mezzanine, the clay slabs—some blackened from firing—echo the flatness and rhythm of the footage. Even the sound of digging feels even, measured, unhurried.
At Maculangan's "Terminal" (video, 2012) and Roderico Jose Daroy's "Untitled" (A**s of the Sun) anchor either end of the exhibition space and in doing so, stretch it further, both literally and imaginatively. Maculangan's large-scale projection offers an immersive sense of an airport terminal. Daroy's installation brings the outside in—soil, grass, plants—drawing the viewer's gaze across tiles and up along the wall, collapsing the boundary between interior and landscape.
Together, the four works occupy silence differently: some fill it, some sit within it, and some let it speak.
