The artists revisit history, identity, and familiar materials through photography and painting in two new exhibitions opening this August.
Two new Silverlens exhibitions showcase the work of Wawi Navarroza and MM Yu, both artists finding fresh possibilities in history, images, and familiar materials. The Orchid Pavilion and sum of its parts will run from August 29 to October 3, 2026, at the gallery’s Manila space in Makati.
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The Orchid Pavilion: Wawi Navarroza Reimagines Philippine History
The Orchid Pavilion is the first installment of Navarroza’s trilogy, The Double-Naveled and Triple-Tongued, A Tropical Gothic Troika. The series examines the exchanges, cultures, and material histories shaped by the Manila Galleons. For this opening exhibition, Navarroza focuses on the Philippines’ pan-Asian heritage and the Chinese presence within Filipino identity. Her photographic tableaus combine blue-and-white porcelain, textiles, religious figures, and staged self-portraits.
“The works do not attempt to illustrate history. Instead, they propose ways of imagining it,” writes curator Yael Buencamino in the exhibition notes. Through these constructed scenes, Navarroza presents Manila as a cosmopolitan port where different people, languages, and traditions converged.
sum of its parts: MM Yu Rearranges The Familiar
In sum of its parts, Yu combines her practices in painting and photography. The exhibition includes paintings made through her dripping technique, which she separates into components before flipping, swapping, and rearranging them. Photographs drawn from encounters with everyday urban life appear alongside the canvases, showing how both art forms move between chance and deliberate composition.
“Repetition becomes less a return to the same than a mode to produce new configurations from what is already familiar,” writes curator Chesca Santiago in the exhibition notes. By reorganizing existing elements, Yu finds different ways to continue working with the media and methods she has explored throughout her practice.
“The Orchid Pavilion, Part One” by Wawi Navarroza and “sum of its parts” by MM Yu will be on view at Silverlens Manila from August 29, 2026, to October 3, 2026. Silverlens Manila is located at 2263 Chino Roces Ave., Makati City. For more information visit www.silverlensgalleries.com.
Photos courtesy of Silverlens Manila | New York
Frequently Asked Questions
Silverlens Manila is presenting The Orchid Pavilion by Wawi Navarroza and sum of its parts by MM Yu.
Both exhibitions will run from August 29 to October 3, 2026.
The Orchid Pavilion explores the Philippines’ pan-Asian heritage and the Chinese presence within Filipino identity through photographic tableaus, historical objects, and self-portraits.
The exhibition combines paintings and photographs. Yu separates, flips, swaps, and rearranges painted components to create new configurations alongside photographs of everyday urban life.
Silverlens Manila is located at 2263 Don Chino Roces Avenue Extension in Makati City.
