1981 / Mixed media / Dimensions variable / Artist: Luis Yee Jr aka Junyee / Temporary installation / Artist’s collection

Ephemeral constructions from natural discards gathered from his Los Baños surroundings comprise Junyee’s body of work, which implicitly state his conviction regarding the unity of art and life and the harmony between man and environment. The medium is the message. Thus Junyee transforms forest waste into artifacts without concern for permanence, as he says, “Everything in this world will pass anyway.” Borrowing elements from sculpture, architecture, and theater, he creates art as environment, exhibiting art as sensory experience beyond the pictorial and academic.

Wood Things is an installation of objects made of kapok pods and dry banana stalks. These are 30.48-40.64 cm long oval objects with spikes suggestive of strange, oversized insects from a primeval forest. The “giant bugs” are fixed from the base of the wall to the ceiling as if they were crawling. The queue of wildly textural creatures on the wall and ordered thickets on the floor violate the urbane whiteness of the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Small Gallery (now Bulwagang Fernando Amorsolo) in a delightful fanciful situation. Acacia pods are laid out on the floor in well-ordered scattering and informally balanced piles. With theatrical lighting of straw, red and blue, an illusion of wilderness is created. The totality of effect is completed by the eerie feeling of itchiness evoked by the crawling objects and the repulsive squirminess suggested by the acacia pods.