Isabel & Alfredo Aquilizan, Address, 2008
Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, a married couple-slash-artist duo, are Australian immigrants from the Philippines who migrated there in 2006 with their five children. The experience of immigration had a great impact on their artistic method and attitude, and since then, they have been working under the themes of migration, association, family, and diaspora. Address (2008) is a large-scale installation that amasses 140 cardboard boxes with immigrants’ personal belongings inside. Each box, filled with one person’s household goods, measures only 50x50x50cm, the standard tax-exempt package size in the Philippines. Immigrant workers from the Philippines receive their personal belongings in these boxes to save on postal tax. The enormous house, compiled by the exhausting goods, offers a sense of empathy and solidarity with the community that lives the era of diaspora.
