Born in Manila at the tail end of the Marcos dictatorship, Pio Abad’s practice emerges from a lived history where the political and the personal were never separate. Raised in a family deeply involved in the Philippines’ pro-democracy movement, Abad grew up amid archival residues, protest culture, and the everyday entanglements of power — foundations that continue to shape his work today. Now based in London, where he has lived for more than sixteen years, Abad has developed a rigorously researched, materially sensitive practice that traces the afterlives of empire, dictatorship, and diaspora through the language of objects.

His nomination for the 2024 Turner Prize marked a significant moment not only for his own career but also for contemporary Filipino art on an international stage. Recognised for To Those Sitting in Darkness at the Ashmolean Museum, Abad’s work resonated widely for its emotional intelligence and its incisive reworking of institutional collections, memory, and grief.

Across drawing, textiles, sculpture, installation and text, Abad turns to objects as witnesses — carriers of political trauma, familial inheritance, and cultural resistance. His practice forms a counter-archive, connecting histories that are often suppressed or overlooked, and revealing the intimate ways personal narratives intersect with national and global forces.

In this conversation with CNTRFLD.ART, Abad reflects on the formative political climate of his childhood, his journey from Manila to Glasgow and London, the complexities of working as a Filipino artist abroad, and his ongoing commitment to honouring both collective histories and family legacies — including his continuing work as curator of the estate of his aunt, the late and influential artist Pacita Abad

Early Years and Influences

CNTRFLD. You grew up in Manila during the final years of the Marcos regime, with parents who were deeply involved in the anti-dictatorship movement. How did that political and familial environment shape your early understanding of art, power, and history?

PA. Living through that tumultuous period — and growing up in that environment — was foundational in shaping how I understand power and history, but also the everyday realities of life. I was literally born a few weeks before Ninoy Aquino, the opposition leader was assassinated, and one of my first photographs as a baby in a pram was at a street protest following his death. That history wasn’t abstract — it was textured, emotional, and deeply woven into my family’s life. My parents were very involved in the difficult and often thankless task of rebuilding democracy after 20 years of dictatorship. My earliest memories were shaped by those turbulent years. I remember my first school field trip was to the presidential palace — the basement had been left exactly as the Marcoses abandoned it. The traces of their excesses were among the first images imprinted in my mind, it was the first museum I ever encountered, and as my practice probably testifies, those images stayed with me.

Being raised by activists and community organisers who later on became academics and legislators, I developed a clear sense of both the possibilities and limitations of art. Art can imagine and reimagine many things — but it never replaces the work of actual people building communities, of working towards a democratic project. That gave me a very grounded understanding of what art can and cannot do.

Journey into Art

CNTRFLD. Before moving abroad, you studied Fine Art at the University of the Philippines, then continued at Glasgow School of Art and the Royal Academy in London. What was that journey like, moving between such different contexts, and how did it shape your practice?

PA. My path to art school was quite long-winded. Before Fine Art, I was actually studying Management in Manila — one of those courses that made sense at the time but didn’t really excite me. My dissatisfaction with that led me to consider Fine Art, and having another artist in the family — my aunt, Pacita Abad — made me realise it could be a viable path. She actually suggested I go to the University of the Philippines, where she had studied. At UP, the education was incredibly traditional — the first year involved lots of drawing and painting bowls of fruit, with professors measuring accuracy. It left me wanting more, but it was also where I met lifelong friends, like Maria Taniguchi. Those connections remain very important to me. After two years, I was 21 and itching to move. It was actually my aunt Pacita who told me, “If you want to be an artist, you better get the f**k out of Manila.” That’s what she did, and somehow I ended up looking at Glasgow. I didn’t want to go to the US — it seemed too obvious given the Philippines’ ties with America — and London felt like too big a leap. Glasgow turned out to be the perfect in-between.

I moved there in 2004, at a time when it was an incredibly exciting city for artists. The Glasgow School of Art’s Mackintosh Building — before the twin fires — was a hub of creative activity. Artists like Cathy Wilkes, Jim Lambie, and Simon Starling were all present in the city.   It was certainly a big adjustment from Manila, but a very exciting one. I stayed for five years, and I felt like I found my place in the community there. Most importantly, I met my wife, Frances, there — she was studying jewellery across the road from my building. We’ve been collaborators in every sense ever since.

Frances later moved to London for her MA, and I followed soon after. The Royal Academy was the only postgraduate course that I could afford, because it was free, and it offered three years and a studio right in the middle of Piccadilly — a dream. I started in 2009, when it was still seen as quite a conservative institution, but I found myself there at a time of big changes and surrounded by an amazing cohort — artists like Michael Armitage, Eddie Peake and Adham Faramawy were just above and below my year.  A lot of my education was really about being in the right place at the right time. Both Glasgow and London prepared me in ways that felt organic and transformative.

Filipino Artist in London

CNTRFLD. You’ve been based in London for many years now. What drew you to make the city your base, and how do you navigate your identity as a Filipino artist within the UK and international art scenes?

PA. Settling in London happened gradually. I’ve lived and paid taxes here for 16 years now, but for a long time most of my exhibitions and collaborations were elsewhere — to the point that people were often surprised I actually lived here.

The turning point was getting a studio at Gasworks, an incredible non-profit in South London. After my Royal Academy degree, they offered me an exhibition and later a studio, where I stayed for eight years. Being part of that community gave me sense of real tenure in the city.

London can be welcoming, but also insular — especially if your narratives don’t fit the dominant story. My work doesn’t always align neatly with what’s happening here, but at Gasworks, I was surrounded by artists I admired, and the organisation’s rotating residency programme brought in artists from all over the world. It was diasporic by nature — a place where difference was normal.

That sense of belonging within a shifting, international community really helped. But now, with a child, the reality of living and working “in between” places no longer works the same way. In the past few years, London has truly become home. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.

Cultural Belonging and Perspective

CNTRFLD. Do you ever feel a sense of in-betweenness — negotiating between your Filipino heritage and your life in the UK — and has that tension found its way into your work?

PA. Strangely, I don’t really feel that sense of in-betweenness. Maybe it’s because I come from a family so deeply rooted in the Philippines — and in the struggle to build a certain kind of Philippines, albeit one that now feels out of reach. My parents were deeply invested in the idea of nation, and that shaped me too. I left the Philippines at 21 — not yet fully formed, but old enough to have a sense of self. That said, deciding to make London home means there’s always a dance between distance and intimacy. In many ways, I don’t think the work I’ve made over the past decade, and a half would have been possible if I were still living in the Philippines. Being distant allows me to see the contours of the subject more clearly.  If there’s a sense of being in two places at once, it’s a productive one — distance offers perspective, and that perspective has been essential to my work.

Arts Ecosystems and Support

CNTRFLD. Having exhibited extensively across Asia, Europe, and North America, how would you describe the differences or similarities in arts support networks in the Philippines versus the UK or elsewhere?

PA. Each place has its own insularity — the Philippines in its way, the UK in another — but I’ve always seen my role as connecting the dots between them. I’ve been lucky to move within interconnected communities of artists and curators who share the same aspirations. I have always felt a sense of belonging with those who perhaps also didn’t quite belong, for whom itineracy was an essential part of how they defined themselves. This is probably why the biennial format became such a crucial form for making my work.

I remember working on a project for the Taipei biennial in 2023 and visiting Lanyu, the southernmost island of Taiwan, which is actually closer to the northernmost island of the Philippines where my family is from. When I got there, I realised I could understand the local language — a pre-colonial form of my father’s Batanes dialect, Ivatan.  Moments like that remind me that my sense of community and even my sense of rootedness is based on movement. The world feels more intimate, but also more abundant with possibilities, when those connections reveal themselves.

The Turner Prize Nomination

CNTRFLD. Congratulations on your Turner Prize nomination. How did it feel to have To Those Sitting in Darkness recognised in this way, and what does that exhibition represent for you personally and politically?

PA. I still remember getting the call from Alex Farquharson, Director of Tate Britain. I was with my aunt’s gallerist Tina Kim unloading artworks from storage — from my shocked reaction, she thought something bad had happened. It was utter disbelief and completely unexpected. Because my career had largely developed outside the UK, it meant a lot to finally have that recognition from peers in the city I call home. The Turner Prize exhibition was actually my first presentation in London in a decade, as I had spent the previous ten years on the road.

The project itself marked a transition. For ten years prior, I’d been immersed in The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders, which examined the Marcos kleptocracy through objects. That project ended just as the Marcos family returned to power — a cruel twist of fate that left me politically and creatively exhausted.  Working with the Ashmolean Museum’s collection became an antidote — an opportunity to re-engage with objects differently. But inevitably, I still found myself returning to the Philippines; it always calls you back.

The Turner experience is surreal — everyone sees your work, everyone has opinions. But I was moved by how the exhibition resonated with people who didn’t necessarily know Philippine history. The larger themes — loss, grief, empire, and longing — found an audience. That’s been deeply affirming and has laid the groundwork for what I’m doing now.

Objects, Memory, and Power

CNTRFLD. Much of your practice explores how objects carry political and emotional histories. What draws you to work through objects as vessels for storytelling and resistance?

PA. I’ve always been drawn to museums. I know they’re complicated institutions — burdened by colonial histories — but for me, encounters with objects within museums have always felt almost religious, that combination of the staging, the architecture and the narration. They can be transformative. That sense of wonder, curiosity, and complexity is what I want to recreate in my work. My practice moves across so many different mediums, from sculpture, drawing and the way through to 3D printing and even augmented reality, but what unites it is a desire to restage those encounters with objects.

Objects are never just things — they’re networks of relationships. I still vividly remember seeing an Aztec turquoise mask at the British Museum 20 years ago and the feelings of awe and terror evoked by that encounter. That charged moment is what I still aspire to do in my work — but through objects that people might not know about or might have been overlooked.

Curating Pacita Abad’s Legacy

CNTRFLD. As curator of your aunt Pacita Abad’s estate, you’ve helped bring renewed attention to her extraordinary career. How do you see your role in preserving and expanding her legacy — and has that process influenced your own artistic thinking?

PA. It’s been become such an essential part of how I see myself as an artist. Pacita was the reason I went to Glasgow in the first place — she was a huge, loud, colourful presence in my life growing up. I started working on her estate in 2017, shortly after my mother passed away. It became a meaningful way to process that loss. My first project was co-curating an exhibition of Pacita’s work at MCAD Manila with curator Joselina Cruz, which we called ‘A Million Things to Say’—it was Pacita’s first major show since her passing. Since then, reintroducing her work to new audiences has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done. When her retrospective opened at the Walker Art Center, curated by Victoria Sung, it felt like a family wedding — my relatives were there, alongside many collaborators in the art world and curators I admire. It was a true gathering of art history and personal history.

Formally, one curatorial decision I’m proud of was showing both the front and back of Pacita’s trapunto paintings at MCAD — revealing the detailed stitching and labour behind them. She used to hide the backs, because embroidery was seen as “craft,” not “art.” Reclaiming that was important— it redefined how people understood the rigor and complexity behind her work.

Current and Forthcoming Projects

CNTRFLD. You’ve had a prolific few years, from Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts in Manila to To Those Sitting in Darkness in Oxford. What current or upcoming projects are you most excited about?

PA. I’m currently working on a large-scale installation for the Diriyah Biennale in Riyadh, opening in January. It’s related to project I developed for the Taipei Biennial 2023 that is rooted in the lyric poetry of Batanes but reimagined for the different context. I’m excited to see how audiences there respond. Later in the year, there’s another project I can’t quite talk about yet — but hopefully a holiday after that! I am currently trying to work out how to travel to Luxor with a two-year-old.

Reflections and Advice

CNTRFLD. Looking back on your artistic journey, what advice would you give to young or emerging artists from the Philippines — or anywhere — who hope to build a meaningful, internationally resonant practice?

PA. I’m always wary of giving advice because so much of what’s happened to me has been a mix of luck and timing. But there’s a quote by Rainer Werner Fassbinder that I love: “The more honestly you put yourself into your story, the more that story will concern others as well.” That honesty is key. The art world can be so fickle; sometimes it can feel like its value systems differ from those of artists’. I try to make work about what I know, what I want to know, or what I’ve experienced — to keep it in proportion to myself. Once you start chasing trends or markets, you risk losing that connection to yourself. And that relationship — with yourself — is the most important one you’ll ever have as an artist.

So much good work comes from honesty, and so much clarity comes from staying true to that.

About the artist.

Pio Abad’s artistic practice is concerned with the personal and political entanglements of objects. His wide-ranging body of work, encompassing drawing, painting, textiles, installation and text, mines alternative or repressed historical events and offers counternarratives that draw out threads of complicity between incidents, ideologies and people. Deeply informed by unfolding events in the Philippines, where Abad was born and raised, his art emanates from a family narrative woven into the nation’s story. Abad’s parents were at the forefront of the anti-dictatorship struggle in the Philippines during the 1970’s and 80’s and it is the need to remember this history that has shaped the foundations of his work. 

Abad’s solo exhibitions include: To Those Sitting in Darkness, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (2024); Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, Ateneo Art Gallery, Manila (2022); Kiss the Hand You Cannot Bite, Kadist, San Francisco (2019); Splendour, Oakville Galleries, Ontario (2019); Notes on Decomposition, Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow (2016); 1975 – 2015, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney and Some Are Smarter Than Others, Gasworks, London (2014). Recent group exhibition include In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire, 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennial, Kerala (2022); Is it morning for you yet?, The 58th Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2022); Things Entangling, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2020); Phantom Limb, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai (2019); To Make Wrong/Right/Now, 2nd Honolulu Biennial, Hawaii (2019); Imagined Nations/ Modern Utopias, 12th Gwangju Biennial, Korea (2018). He was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2024.

Abad’s artworks are part of a number of important collections including Tate, UK; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Hawai’i State Art Museum, Honolulu; Singapore Art Museum; Kadist, Paris/San Francisco and Art Jameel, Dubai.

He is also the curator of the estate of his aunt, the Filipino American artist Pacita Abad. He has recently co-curated monographic exhibitions on Pacita Abad at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design Manila; Spike Island, Bristol and Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai. He also co-edited the publication Pacita Abad: A Million Things to Say in 2021.