Josephine Turalba: We are the Sea
10 Chancery Lane Gallery is pleased to announce We Are The Sea, a major solo exhibition by acclaimed Filipino transdisciplinary artist Josephine Turalba.
Curated by Hong Kong-based art historian and researcher Dr. Caroline Ha Thuc, the exhibition opens with a reception on June 3, 2026, from 5 pm to 8 pm, with both the artist and curator in attendance.
Drawing its core inspiration from Pacific thinker Epeli Hauʻofa’s powerful declaration, “We are the sea, we are the ocean,” the showcase invites audiences to transcend land-bound isolation in favor of an expansive, interconnected oceanic worldview.
An in-depth Artist’s and Curator’s Talk is scheduled for Saturday, June 6, at 3 pm.
For more than a decade, Turalba has cultivated a distinctive practice centered on dense, tactile assemblages that merge traditional craftsmanship with contemporary debris.
Her intricate textile works intertwine materials such as leather, bullet casings, embroidery, and discarded shoe soles, creating a fluid visual environment where myth collides with modern technology.
Under her direction, bullet shells transform into slippers, shoe soles morph into manta rays, and octopuses blur into surveillance drones.
This hybrid vocabulary exposes a world where marine ecology, folklore, militarization, and digital infrastructure exist in a perpetual state of both harmony and friction.
A focal point of the exhibition is Drifting Threads and Topographies, a series originally conceived during the artist's residency in Japan and showcased at the Nakanojo Biennale.
Utilizing indigenous Filipino piña silk—woven from pineapple fiber and silk cocoons—Turalba suspends ten vertical panels ranging from 2.5 to 6.4 meters in length above a mirrored floor.
The installation creates an immersive, translucent underwater topography where embroidered currents, coral reefs, and hydrothermal vents destabilize traditional human scales of perspective.
By inviting visitors to walk among these towering, floating textiles, the gallery space mirrors the experience of swimming through the deep architecture of marine life.
The exhibition also introduces Re:clamation (2026), a newly created video animation featuring a Hong Kong-recorded soundtrack that synthesizes Philippine, Japanese, and Hong Kong mythologies.
The narrative follows a young Badjao boy rescued from a ghost net by an oarfish, culminating in a symbolic rain of sand that directly references Hong Kong's contested territorial land reclamations.
Geopolitical tensions are further interrogated in Strait Lines (2026), an installation that depicts the Strait of Hormuz from a fish’s perspective, utilizing stitched and perforated leather to convey the heavy, militarized reality of resource extraction and ecological disruption.
Josephine Turalba Borrowed Moonlight, 2025 Embroidered hand-dyed piña-silk panel in deep teal 320 x 76 cm
Despite confronting these environmental crises, We Are The Sea remains deeply rooted in resilience and adaptation.
As an avid diver since youth, Turalba infuses her work with a celebration of evolutionary vitality, represented in her animation by the young protagonist developing gills to survive underwater.
Ultimately, the exhibition presents the ocean not as a geopolitical border but as a continuous, unifying body of water.
Turalba and Ha Thuc advocate for a radical reimagining of the human relationship to the environment, shifting the cultural narrative away from anthropocentric control and toward kinship, collective care, and ecological responsibility.
Josephine Turalba holds advanced degrees from Sint-Lucas Antwerpen and the Transart Institute, and her acclaimed hydro-feminist works have been featured globally, including at the Venice, London, and Cairo Bienniales.
Curator Dr. Caroline Ha Thuc specializes in Asian contemporary art and ecocriticism, recently publishing The Ocean Manifesto for the UN Conference on the Ocean.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary alongside the Tai Kwun Heritage and Cultural site, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery presents this exhibition to coincide with World Oceans Day, supporting the non-profit organization Oceanic Global, and as a proud participant in Women Artists’ Art Week World (WAAW) Impact Week to champion the visibility of female artists globally.
Josephine Turalba Borrowed Moonlight, 2025 Embroidered hand-dyed piña-silk panel in deep teal 320 x 76 cm
