The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) OpensThe Extra Extra Ordinary Exhibit

by - September 25, 2018


The Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila officially unveils The Extra Extra Ordinary exhibit during the opening night last September 20, 2018. Curated by Joselina Cruz and Esther Lu and presented with Taipei Contemporary Art Center (TCAC), the show is also generously supported by Edouard Malingue Gallery and the National Culture and Arts Foundation (NCAF). The exhibition includes the work of Tromarama, Chou Yu-Cheng and Gary-Ross Pastrana who were all present at the opening.


The Extra Extra Ordinary proposes a new sensory processor to attend our contemporary everyday life with add-ons movements and sensitivities. The title suggests an abstraction of affects shared among the human and the non-human; their correlation and disjoints as informed by contemporary objects, technology and culture. The exhibition also presents possibilities towards the generation of various sets of social and material connections, finding ourselves simultaneously in the process of becoming and worlding.

During the media launch, Joselina Cruz and Esther Lu as well as the artists Tromarama, Chou Yu-Cheng and Gary-Ross Pastrana best defined the exhibit as a growing tension to unlearn ethics between human and non-human worlds is one of the burning issues of our time. We question the culture we’ve inherited in the face of accumulated ecological catastrophes, of wars and the continuously increasing debts that are passed on to the coming generations. Our anxiety goes even further beyond traditional boundaries with technology invention all the time. Many of us have been addressing ideas of the Post-Human and that of New Materialism as a possibility of finding ways to think beyond human principles, reasons and perspectives. 




The Extra Extra Ordinary shares such concerns specific to our modern material conditions, and seeks to offer an alternative spacetime for us to exercise and explore how we can relate ourselves among things seen and unseen.





By creating a simulation of such a worlding process with works presented by artists, The Extra Extra Ordinary conceives many unparalleled sensibilities to operate the essence of life in detail, inter exchanges and connections among matter, energy and life. With the circulation of these ideas, where agents such as audience become intrinsic parts of the media outputting the extraordinary celebration of every ordinary life takes on a poetic and imaginative turn.


The Exhibition will run from 21 September 2018 – 18 November 2018.

About the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design

As part of the artistic community of the College of Saint Benilde’s School of Design and Arts, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD) is a unique institution that offers the experience of and exposure to contemporary art and its various publics, with a focus on Manila, Philippines as context.

Distinct for its position as a non-collecting institution, MCAD’s contemporary art exhibitions, public programs, as well as other cultural and art-inspired undertakings showcase the possibilities of technology, new media and presents content that encourages engagement with art and culture, its practice and production, as well as its presentation and interpretation.

Professionally recognized for its standards in curatorial and exhibition practice, MCAD is a space where art is central. By remaining reflexive and responsive to changes in society, politics and the production of ideas, the Museum seeks to develop an innovative and inclusionary paradigm where “free access for all” addresses not only a cross-section of social classes, but also of knowledges.


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