Movemeant A gathering and a Ritual

We launched our Open Studio program in 2025, an initiative seeking to support artists for their projects in-progress, giving them access to our refurbished museum basement and our holdings. Our Open Studio also aims to create opportunities for artists to connect with our museum audience, and share their works-in-progress through conversations and dialogues.

Jazel Kristin Villamarin is our resident artist for our Open Studio program this quarter. She will facilitate a series of workshops where ‘milagros’ emblems will be crafted.

MOVEMEANT invites people to come together through storytelling and exchange. Participants create symbolic aluminum ‘milagros’ representing something meaningful in their lives. These offerings will become part of a growing archive to ferry stories from one community to the next.

The first workshop session is on Saturday, July 25th from 1 – 5 PM.

Register at https://bit.ly/UPVMMovemeantworkshop2026 to join the workshop. Materials and snacks will be provided but slots are limited.

About the artist
Jazel Kristin is a documentary ‘heartist’ based in Manila, Philippines. Through documentary, installation, photography, and participatory art, she creates spaces for witnessing. Her ongoing project, MOVEMEANT, has evolved through collaborations in the Philippines and across Asia. Her work has been exhibited at the Jeonbuk Museum of Art (South Korea), Site-A Gallery (Koganecho, Japan), B Contemporary Art Gallery (Mongolia), FFFFFF (Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Silverlens Gallery, Blanc Gallery, West Gallery, UP Vargas Museum, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines, as well as in Hong Kong, Singapore and France.

About the museum
The University of the Philippines Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center is a center for Philippine art and culture with research, curation, and education as its core thrusts. The Museum is home to collections of art, books, archives, memorabilia, coins, and stamps from Jorge B. Vargas, a significant political figure in the twentieth-century Philippines and an alumnus of the University of the Philippines. An avid collector with a vision of sharing Philippine art with future generations, Jorge Vargas donated the holdings he acquired across his illustrious career in public service, sports, and scouting to his alma mater in 1978.

Since it opened in 1987, the UP Vargas Museum has been visited by students, researchers, scholars, and the public. The Museum has galleries for permanent, long-term, and temporary exhibitions. The galleries are also spaces for educational events such as workshops, lectures, symposia, walkthroughs, and talks by artists and curators. The library accommodates researchers, scholars, students, and artists; it also hosts small exhibitions within its spaces.

Source: UP Vargas Museum Facebook