{{Short description|Filipina-Canadian filmmaker}} {{Infobox artist | name = Stephanie Comilang | field = Filmmaker and video installation artist | elected = | awards = Sobey Art Award | influenced = | influenced by = | patrons = | works = | movement = | training = | image = | death_place = | death_date = | birth_place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1980}} | birth_name = | caption = | alt = | imagesize = | website = {{URL|http://www.cometomeparadise.com}} }}
'''Stephanie Comilang''' (born 1980) is a Filipina-Canadian artist and filmmaker.
== Background == Stephanie Comilang's parents immigrated from the Philippines to Canada in the 1970s<ref name=":0" /> to escape the political unrest of Ferdinand Marcos's dictatorship.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/artists/sobey-art-award/an-interview-with-stephanie-comilang-2019-sobey-art-award-winner|title=An Interview with Stephanie Comilang: 2019 Sobey Art Award Winner|website=www.gallery.ca|language=en|access-date=2020-03-11}}</ref> Growing up in an immigrant household shaped her idea of home and has served as the starting point for much of her artwork.<ref name=":0" /> She graduated from the OCAD University in 2006 with a BFA in Integrated Media.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ocadu.ca/alumni/alumni-news|title=OCAD University|website=www.ocadu.ca|access-date=2020-03-11}}</ref>
== Artistic career == Comilang's work is concerned with the concept of home, often dealing with ideas of diaspora and migration. Her documentary approach in constructing narratives stresses themes of social mobility, global labor, and cross-cultural communication. Through the medium of video, Comilang explores the conditions migrants face, looking at exploitation and adversity that groups endure when leaving a country for reasons beyond their control.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://dismagazine.com/discussion/82626/lumapit-sa-akin-paraiso-come-to-me-paradise/|title=Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso|last=Toro|first=Lauren Boyle, Solomon Chase, Marco Roso, Nick Scholl, David|website=DIS Magazine|access-date=2020-03-11}}</ref> An early influence was ''Perfumed Nightmare'' (1977) by Filipino film director Kidlat Tahimik, which sparked her interest in cinema and set a precedent for her work. Like Comilang's father, Kidlat Tahimik comes from Baguio, an old American air base on Luzon island in the Philippines; watching films created by such a relatable figure impacted how she began developing her practice.
Comilang characterizes many of her projects as "science-fiction documentaries," because she often combines a documentary approach with fictional elements and narratives.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-31 |title=Studio Visit with Stephanie Comilang |url=https://www.berlinartlink.com/2020/07/31/stephanie-comilang/ |access-date=2025-04-03 |website=Berlin Art Link |language=en-US}}</ref> She frequently draws from the visual language of social media, as well as the work of filmmakers like Chris Marker and Agnès Varda. In the ''New York Times'', Dawn Chan writes that "Comilang's artwork reads as both elegy and repartee. Though the subjects she interviews represent a variety of ages, her videos seem consonant with the perspectives of a younger generation raised on an internet that transcends borders. There's a tacit understanding, from that vantage point, that global interconnectedness is all but impossible to reverse."<ref>{{Cite news |date=2025-07-07 |title=She Turns Cultures and Commodities Upside Down |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/arts/design/stephanie-comilang-cara.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250819181650/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/07/arts/design/stephanie-comilang-cara.html |archive-date=2025-08-19 |access-date=2025-12-19 |language=en |url-status=live }}</ref>
Comilang's work has been widely shown in solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Europe, and Asia, including at the National Gallery of Canada, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid),<ref name="museothyssen.org">{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang. En busca de la vida {{!}} Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza |url=https://www.museothyssen.org/exposiciones/stephanie-comilang-busca-vida |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=www.museothyssen.org |language=es}}</ref> Jameel Arts Centre (Dubai),<ref>{{Cite web |title=Paradise Lives in the Ruins of Colonial and Dictatorship Architecture. An Artist Talk by Stephanie Comilang - Jameel Arts Centre |url=https://jameelartscentre.org/whats-on/paradise-lives-in-the-ruins-of-colonial-and-dictatorship-architecture-an-artist-talk-by-stephanie-comilang/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=jameelartscentre.org |language=en-US}}</ref> and Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin), as well as Sharjah Biennial 16<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-02-27 |title=Highlights from Sharjah Biennial 16 |url=https://www.berlinartlink.com/2025/02/27/sharjah-biennial-16-to-carry-highlights/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=Berlin Art Link |language=en-US}}</ref> and Hawai'i Triennial.<ref>{{Cite web |title=HT25 Artist - Stephanie Comilang |url=https://hawaiicontemporary.org/ht25-artist-comilang |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=Hawaii Contemporary |language=en-US}}</ref> In 2025, Comilang had her first solo exhibition in the United States at the Center for Art, Research and Alliances titled "An Apparition, A Song".<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang: An Apparition, A Song |url=https://www.cara-nyc.org/program/exhibitions/stephanie-comilang-an-apparition-a-song |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=CARA |language=en-US}}</ref>
Her films have been screened at Tate Modern,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tate |title=Avatars, proxies and digital twins {{!}} Tate Modern |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/avatars-proxies-and-digital-twins |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251011042314/https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/avatars-proxies-and-digital-twins |archive-date=2025-10-11 |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=Tate |language=en-GB |url-status=live }}</ref> Rockabund Museum (Shanghai), Kunsthall Trondheim,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-09-17 |title=Online film screening and artist talk: Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser — Kunsthall Trondheim |url=https://kunsthalltrondheim.no/en/arrangementer/online-filmvisning-og-kunstnersamtale-stephanie-comilang-og-simon-speiser |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=kunsthalltrondheim.no |language=en}}</ref> GHOST:2561 Bangkok Video and Performance Art Triennale,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-07-05 |title=Ghost 2565 : Intermission - BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY |url=https://bangkokcitycity.com/event/ghost-2565-intermission/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY - BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY}}</ref> International Film Festival Rotterdam, Asia Art Archive in America (New York), SALTS Basel, and UCLA, among others.<ref name=":0" />
She is represented by Daniel Faria Gallery (Toronto)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang |url=https://danielfariagallery.com/artists/stephanie-comilang |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=danielfariagallery.com}}</ref> and ChertLüdde (Berlin).<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-09-25 |title=Stephanie Comilang – ChertLüdde |url=https://chertluedde.com/artist/stephanie-comilang/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |language=en-US}}</ref>
=== Projects === ''Search for Life'' (2024–2025) is a film/video installation diptych that examines issues related to labor, migration, colonial and post-colonial power, and diaspora through the figure of the monarch butterfly (episode one) and the pearl (episode two). It was co-commissioned by Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Sharjah Biennial, and The Vega Foundation.<ref name="thevegafoundation.com">{{Cite web |title=Search for Life II • The Vega Foundation |url=https://www.thevegafoundation.com/productions/search-for-life-ii |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=www.thevegafoundation.com |language=en}}</ref>
''Search for Life'' (2024) premiered at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza,<ref name="museothyssen.org"/> where it was curated by Chus Martínez. In the large-scale film and textile installation, two facing screens trace the maritime routes used by Spain after the colonization of the Philippines. Central to the narrative is the butterfly, "a symbol of transformation and resistance,"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Verheijden |first=Benjamin |date=2024-04-18 |title=Who is Stephanie Comilang? The Artist Exploring Labour and Transition in a Globalised World |url=https://elephant.art/who-is-stephanie-comilang-the-artist-exploring-labour-and-transition-in-a-globalised-world/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=ELEPHANT |language=en-US}}</ref> who is represented in the work through voiceover. Other figures share stories reflecting on the impact of Spanish colonialism on Filipino culture; it includes interviews with historian Guadalupe Pinzón Ríos; Filipino butterfly specialist Jade Aster T. Badon; a florist, Michael John Díaz, and a painter, Joar Songcuya, who are both Filipino seafarers; and a boy named Simón from Michoacán, Mexico.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang |url=https://curamagazine.com/digital/stephanie-comilang/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=CURA. |language=en-US}}</ref>
''Search for Life II'' (2025) premiered at the Sharjah Biennial, where it was curated by Amal Khalaf.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Amal Khalaf. Sharjah Biennial 16, 2025 |url=https://universes.art/en/sharjah-biennial/2025/amal-khalaf |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=universes.art |language=en-US}}</ref> It explores themes of migration, labor, diaspora, and technology through the history and industrialization of pearl diving in the Persian Gulf, the Philippines, and China.<ref name="thevegafoundation.com"/> In the two-channel installation, the pearl is depicted as both a currency object and speculative subject, connecting global cultures and collapsing past and future through its focus on the stories and songs of an Emirati-Filipina K-pop band and a Sama-Bajau pearl fisher.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ben Eastham on Sharjah Biennial 16 - Criticism |url=https://www.e-flux.com/criticism/655041/sharjah-biennial-16-to-carry |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=e-flux |language=en}}</ref> It contains a massive bead curtain on which one of the videos is projected and a large viewing platform designed to resemble an ocean pier; the installation was called “a centrepiece” of the Sharjah Biennial 16, an exhibition that featured 200 artists.<ref>{{Cite web |last=aperturewp |date=2025-03-14 |title=A Biennial Carries the Weight of a World in Crisis |url=https://aperture.org/editorial/a-biennial-carries-the-weight-of-a-world-in-crisis/ |access-date=2025-04-04 |website=Aperture |language=en-US}}</ref>
''Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?'' (2022), a collaboration with artist Simon Speiser,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Simon Speiser - Artist |url=https://www.simonspeiser.de/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=www.simonspeiser.de}}</ref> is a video and virtual-reality installation that narrates the story of a spiritual medium and artificial intelligence named Piña, who receives, collects, and transmits ancestral knowledge for future generations. Loosely structured around the history of the pineapple, which connects Ecuador and the Philippines through colonial trade routes, the installation is a "seamless blending of imagined techno-feminist futures with the present-day labors of women shaman and activists."<ref name="e-flux.com">{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang and Simon Speiser's “Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?” - Criticism |url=https://www.e-flux.com/criticism/498016/stephanie-comilang-and-simon-speiser-s-pi-a-why-is-the-sky-blue |access-date=2025-12-19 |website=e-flux |language=en}}</ref> It features interviews with contemporary knowledge-keepers and activists, including Kankwana Canelos and Rupay Gualinga of Ciber Amazonas, a group of Indigenous activists in Puyo, Ecuador, who use radio broadcasts to form feminist alliances; Janet Dolera, a babaylan (spiritual medium) and community leader in the Philippines; and Alba Pavón, an Afro-Ecuadorian organizer of the Black Women's Movement in Pichincha, Ecuador.<ref name="e-flux.com"/> The figure of Piña appears in the VR component, embodied in human form by model and designer Lukresia. ''Piña, Why is the Sky Blue?'' was first presented at the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina) in 2022, and subsequently at the Julia Stoschek Collection (Berlin), Gallery TPW (Toronto), Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), Silverlens (Manila), Museo Antropologico y de Arte Contemporaneo (Guayaquil), and the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa).
''Yesterday, In the Years 1886 and 2017'' (2017) consists of a two-channel 10-minute video and installation commissioned by Artspeak in Vancouver.<ref>{{Cite web |title=ArtAsiaPacific: Meeting Yesterday In Paradise Profile Of Stephanie Comilang |url=http://artasiapacific.com/Blog/MeetingYesterdayInParadiseProfileOfStephanieComilang |access-date=2020-03-11 |website=artasiapacific.com}}</ref>
''Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso (Come to Me, Paradise)'' (2016) is a self-proclaimed "science-fiction documentary."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ghost2561.com/STEPHANIE-COMILANG.html|title=Stephanie Comilang|last=|first=|date=|website=ghost:2561|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-03-10}}</ref> Following three Filipina domestic workers, Irish May Salinas, Lyra Ancheta Torbela and Romylyn Presto Sampaga, who reside in Hong Kong, this 25-minute film narrates the digital communication of these women as they relay the realities of their everyday lives and migratory work back to their homes and families. The drone camera that shot most of the video footage is named Paradise, and is voiced by Comilang's mother, Emily Comilang. Paradise functions as both a narrator and also a symbol through which the digital communication of the three protagonists is transmitted.<ref name=":1" /> Identifications of being ''between'' are meditated upon through the use of technology, attention to time, and the protagonists as subjects of diaspora. Comilang demonstrates the complex ways in which these women must reconcile notions of space and home through the migratory experience.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gallery.ca/whats-on/sobey-art-award/artists-2019/ontario|title=Sobey Art Award 2019 – Ontario|website=www.gallery.ca|language=en|access-date=2020-03-11}}</ref>
== Exhibitions == Solo exhibitions (selected)
* 2025: ''Coordinates at Dawn'', SCHIRN Kunsthalle Frankfurt<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang |url=https://www.schirn.de/en/exhibition/stephanie-comilang/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT |language=en}}</ref> * 2025: ''An Apparition, A Song'', CARA, New York<ref name=":2" /> * 2025: ''Search For Life I'', Bangkok Kunsthalle, Bangkok * 2024: ''Search For Life'', TBA-21 at Thyssen-Bornemisza Museo Nacional, Madrid * 2024: ''Bouquets For Paradise'', Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stephanie Comilang: Bouquets for Paradise |url=https://danielfariagallery.com/exhibitions/bouquets-for-paradise |access-date=2026-02-11 |website=danielfariagallery.com}}</ref> * 2022: ''How To Make A Painting From Memory'', ChertLüdde, Berlin<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-09-17 |title=Stephanie ComilangHow To Make A Painting From MemoryChertLüdde, Berlin17 September – 29 October 2022 – ChertLüdde |url=https://chertluedde.com/exhibition/how-to-make-a-painting-from-memory/ |access-date=2026-02-11 |language=en-US}}</ref> * 2017: ''Yesterday In The Years 1886 & 2017'', Artspeak, Vancouver
Group exhibitions (selected)
* 2025: ''To Carry'', Sharjah Biennale, Sharjah * 2025: ''Aloha Nō'', Hawai’i Triennale, Honolulu * 2024: ''At the Edge of Land'', Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai * 2024: ''Spirit Pictures,'' Berlinische Galerie, Berlin * 2023: ''Green Snake'', Tai Kwun, Hong Kong * 2022: ''Enmeshed'', Tate Modern, London * 2022: ''Blue Assembly'', University of Queensland Art Museum, Brisbane, Australia * 2021: ''Nation, Narration, Narcosis'', Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin * 2019: ''The Bicycle Thieves'', Para Site, Hong Kong * 2019: ''It All Makes Sense'', Museum of Contemporary Art, Toronto
== Awards == In 2019, Comilang was the winner of the Sobey Art Award, Canada's largest prize for visual artists.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gallery.ca/magazine/artists/sobey-art-award/stephanie-comilang-winner-of-the-2019-sobey-art-award|title=Stephanie Comilang: Winner of the 2019 Sobey Art Award|website=www.gallery.ca|language=en|access-date=2020-03-04}}</ref>
== References == <references />
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Comilang, Stephanie}} Category:Canadian video artists Category:Women video artists Category:Filipino artists Category:Canadian contemporary artists Category:OCAD University alumni Category:21st-century Canadian women artists Category:1980 births Category:Living people Category:21st-century Canadian artists