Sampaguita Projects presents Material Support for the inaugural edition of the Quezon City Biennial. The idea of ‘material support' allows for the examination of the integrity of infrastructure, its sturdiness or glaring cracks. Furthermore, it can connote a financial or material need in a hampered economic state that only allows a hand to mouth living for many. The city’s chaos is a promising starting point for people from all over the country—who are enmeshed with its sounds, smells, and smoke—persevering in the mirage of progressive urbanity.

Gleaning from the industrial scenery and political gordian knot of the country’s urban life are artists Allan Balisi, David Ryan Viray, Uri De Ger, and Vlad Grutas.

While Allan Balisi and David Ryan Viray showcase the unique steel charm of vehicles that make up Philippine mass transportation, with its own arsenal of influential folk humor and persisting problems, Vlad Grutas and Uri De Ger explore manifestations of power in socio-political life through their respective installations that incorporate elements of play, interpreting the biennial’s larger theme of Ilalim/Ibabaw as the form of society’s infrastructure.

Material Support also becomes ‘material proof’ of how our lives are shaped by what we endure. The nation’s main source of material support should be the government, especially with how policy shapes ubiquity—whether to support it or make what we know disappear: jeepney phaseouts, wage increase, fare hikes, and market prices. The exhibition exposes what needs to be addressed and transformed, what is broken, and what can still be salvaged for the future.