Mayari Spirit Exhibition
EXHIBITION: Mayari Spirit
OPENED: June 2021
LOCATION: Lower East Side, NEW YORK
The Mayari Spirit collection is an expression of my personal encounter with grief and the complex journey of healing, growth, and strength that follows. That journey is rooted in the desire to learn about who I am through my ancestors– who for generations before me hailed from the Philippine archipelago.
I was invited by Kabisera NYC to showcase my collection as part of their Artist Series. Kabisera became a springboard for young creatives both in the food and art industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the cafe became a safe haven for those in the Filipino community that lost or left their jobs.
Mayari is a figure in Tagalog mythological cosmology, most commonly known to be the demigoddess of the Moon.
When Mayari’s father, Bathala Maykapal (creator of the World) passed away, she appealed to her brother, Apolaki, to share sovereignty over the earth. Apolaki wanted absolute power and ended up blinding Mayari in one eye while at war with each other.
In his regret, he agreed to split dominance over the earth, with Apolaki ruling during the day as the Sun and Mayari ruling in the evening as the Moon. As such, Mayari is guardian over beauty, revolution, combat, and equality.
Mayari is known to be the most beautiful of Bathala’s court, but I call into question– what is beauty and according to whose definition? The reality of mythological cosmology is that there are no true descriptions of what she looked like and if she appeared in human form at all in the stories passed down through generations of oral storytelling. Mayari is a reminder that the idea of beauty need not be confined to being adorned in gold filigree nor being physically “perfect”; and that beauty is not a rarity, but instead, as a human (or half-human), beauty is innate to each and every one of us.
Moreover, what attracts me most to Mayari is not her divinity, but rather her humanness. She has the capacity to balance ideals of both femininity and masculinity and embodies a wholeness that is befitting of the Moon she rules in all its phases. But even when acknowledging her divinity, she is evidence that it is less about who you are born to and more about what you fight for and how you walk the path you follow. She asks us to recognize the divinity that exists within all of us and to remember that it is our birthright to transform and transcend.