Responsive Residencies
The residencies open up a constellation of collaborations and exchanges while grounded in place-based practice. Artists and curators including Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, Leeroy New, Anandavalli, Leila Shirazi, Tian Zhang and others work across Manila, Sydney, Melbourne and the wider South East Asian region through residencies, commissions, research, public programs and community-engaged projects. These residencies connect museums, artist-run initiatives, grassroots communities and cultural institutions, creating pathways for artists to move between local histories and international conversations.
Together, these streams form a constellation of relationships that repositions Australia within its oceanic neighbourhood. We’re Weaving Oceans is not simply an exchange program. It is a curatorial proposition: that remembering Austronesia offers artists, institutions and communities an opportunity to think beyond colonial cartographies and towards more reciprocal, culturally grounded and enduring regional futures.
2026 -2027 Artists Commissions
Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan
Award-winning and internationally-acclaimed husband-and-wife duo Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan (b. 1965 and 1962, Philippines) approach their collaborative practice from the lens of their own personal experiences of global movement in relation to family and home. In doing so, they create highly detailed installations and sculptures that spark conversations around ideas of identity, migration, journey and displacement. Often using everyday, non-traditional materials, they draw attention to the transient nature of global movement, settlement and community, to create objects that serve as metaphors for everyday human life.
The works of Isabel and Alfredo Aquilizan have been exhibited extensively in galleries and institutions worldwide, including Japanischen Palais, Germany (2024); Groninger Museum, Netherlands (2024); Rockhampton Museum of Art (2024); Asia Culture Center (2024); the Art Gallery of New South Wales (2023); National Gallery Singapore (2022); Podo Museum, South Korea (2022); Madre Museum, Italy (2022); Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2021); Museum of Brisbane (2021); Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand (2019); Mao Jihong Arts Foundation and Centre Pompidou, China (2018), amongst many others.
In June 2023, the Aquilizans presented a major survey exhibition, Somewhere, Elsewhere, Nowhere at Museum MACAN, Indonesia which encompasses two decades of their work.
The artists have participated in The National 4: Australian Art Now, Campbelltown Art Centre (2023); Busan Biennale, South Korea (2019); Gangwon International Biennale, South Korea (2018); Sharjah Biennale, UAE (2013); Asia Pacific Triennale, Australia (2009); Singapore Biennale (2008); Biennale of Sydney, Australia (2006); Gwangju Biennale, South Korea (2004); and Venice Biennale, Italy (2003).
Their works are included in the major collections such as Museum MACAN (Indonesia); the Singapore Art Museum; Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan); National Gallery of Australia; Queensland Art Gallery (Australia); MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Thailand); ILHAM Museum (Malaysia); Facebook, Menlo Park Headquarters (USA); Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (Australia); and Lopez Museum Foundation (Philippines).
The artists currently reside in Los Baños, Philippines.
Leeroy New
Leeroy New (b. 1986, General Santos, Philippines) is a Manila-based artist-designer whose practice moves across sculpture, installation, fashion, film, theatre, product design, public art and performance. Originally trained as a sculptor, New has developed a highly adaptive practice that treats world-building, myth-making and social change as central artistic methods. His works often transform collected, recycled and everyday materials into large-scale environments, wearable forms and speculative architectures that draw from science fiction, folklore, urban ecologies and vernacular making.
New has presented work across major international platforms, including the Biennale of Sydney, Palais de Tokyo in Paris, Honolulu Triennial, Somerset House in London, Ulaanbaatar Biennale in Mongolia, Singapore Biennale, Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale and Setouchi Triennale. His projects have also moved beyond gallery contexts into runways, music videos, public spaces, forests, rivers and deserts, reflecting his interest in applied sculpture and the transformation of everyday environments.
Based in the Philippines, New continues to build ambitious works that connect contemporary art with community participation, sustainability, speculative imagination and the cultural textures of rapidly changing cities.
