Art Projects 2021

Isabel & Alfredo Aqulizan In Habit

In the loft area of the Art Gallery, a bustling city of the future from recycled cardboard is growing. A city of dream homes: skyscrapers, motor homes, houseboats, single-family homes with garages, picturesque cottages with gardens, modern glass complexes and terraces with pools. ‘‘The important thing is not the houses but the conversations that take place when the houses are being built”, says the artist duo Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan about In Habit, their project with Wanås Konst Learning.

IN HABIT – WHAT MAKES A HOUSE A HOME?

In the pedagogical art project In Habit, almost 1,500 children from Blentarp, Hässleholm, Höör, and Östra Göinge met with artist duo Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan under the leadership of Wanås Konst’s educators. In a video greeting, the artists gave the students an assignment: build a model of their dream home while simultaneously thinking about what makes a house a home. 

The Aquilizans’ artistic practice is anchored in co-creation. Through their works, they bring people together to do things in order to create conversations, build relationships, and exchange experiences. The result becomes large-scale installations of recycled materials that often have themes such as home, belonging, and migration. The artists are strongly influenced by their own experiences of leaving their homeland, the Philippines, to settle in Australia. 

The artist couple visited Wanås Konst before a planned exhibition in 2020 that would be their first in Sweden. When the pandemic brought these plans to a halt, the exhibition was reworked into a collaboration with the artists working remotely. This project took place over the 2020/21 school year.