Wesley Valenzuela’s Endemic, Blanc Gallery, September 2017

Endemic means “in the population.” It derives from the Greek endēmos, which joins en, meaning “in,” and dēmos, meaning “population.” Endemic is often used to characterize diseases that are generally found in a particular area, or a state of being/outlook that is deeply imbedded in a given cultural hemisphere. 

In this exhibition, the artist used the term as a starting point, to navigate and examine the peculiar Filipino mindset, how we see things and how we react as a people. The concepts tackled in this exhibition echoes the reactions for human survival. Once we are given a set of norms surrounded by an environment of unsettling standards, impunity and disinformation, how do we react? Do we succumb to just ride the tide? Do we go against the grain and fight for what it is to be genuinely human? A glimpse of our surroundings will give us the current state of where we are right at this moment. What now?