Silver Linings

2025 | A.I.R. Gallery | USA

In Silver Linings, silver functions as both the prize and the net that draws it in. This series developed from my engagement with fishing-net weaving, which I began as a way to reconnect with and embody a lost craft tradition that once shaped my family.

The Malay word for “silver,” perak, gave rise to the Filipino term pera, reflecting the enduring link between this lustrous metal and ideas of value. Silver became the world’s first global currency in the 16th century, when Spanish coins circulated across continents, reaching the Philippines via the Manila Galleons that sailed between the islands and Acapulco during Spanish colonization. Along these routes, silver tied distant places together while shaping labor and trade.

Like the silver that once bridged oceans, the Filipino diaspora stretches families across continents. Today, an estimated 6,000 Filipinos leave the Philippines each day. Most migrate out of necessity, to support their families and to secure a better future. In their new countries, many face profound economic, emotional, and cultural challenges like homesickness, exploitation, violence, and discrimination. Yet amid these struggles, small victories endure: money sent home, or a word learned in a new language. These are the “silver linings” of migration: fragile yet sustaining threads that keep families tethered across distances and time zones.