Alfredo Juan (Philippines, 1962) and Isabel Aquilizan y Gaudinez (Phillipines, 1965) are currently based in Brisbane with their five children. The artist-duo’s collaborative activities evolved within the spheres of family and community, including personal relationships and those they share with other artists. For years they have been exploring the meaning of ‘home’ and a sense of ‘belonging’ while travelling extensively for work, finding and defining the notion of ‘identity’, dealing with hardships of journey, displacement, sensing presences in absence and accumulating memory. They continue to process these issues through materials and objects that are both abstract and referential, objects that serve as metaphors of everyday human life.

Most notably, their oeurvre includes the long-protracted “Project Be-longing” (1997-2007), an artistic collaboration spanning ten years. They are currently working on a new project entitled Another Country that talks about migration, dislocation, diaspora, adopting/adapting, settlement/resettlement, and identity.

Coffee & Conversations is a casual session that aims to connect our artist with the public, giving them the chance to introduce their practice and ideas prior to their stint at STPI. It also offers audiences the rare opportunity to view works in progress in the artist studio.