Tristan Esmino

In his thesis show titled, alala’hanin/tanda’an/ma’ala’ala, Tristan Esmino draws inspiration from cultural signifiers and early memories growing up in the Philippines to bridge the gap between his multicultural identity as a Filipino-American. Operating like emotional archives, Esmino engages with sculpture and textiles as symbolic vessels to carry the traditions, the essence, and the nuances of his Filipino heritage. These vessels hold the dreams of a diasporic return, while longing for a destination and a sense of belonging. For Esmino, working with the thread is an act of healing and repair, to create and to transform.

Tristan Esmino (1990, Philippines) is an artist based in Los Angeles working in the realms of sculpture and textiles. Esmino’s experience as a first-generation Filipino immigrant informs his practice by exploring ideas of migration, movement, family history and the ways we carry memories. His work is a form of reclamation, building a critical material language around the complexities of identity, belonging, and the constant redefinition of home. Grounded through the labors of love and care, Esmino’s works occupy spaces as both a form of resistance and preservation where the materials and process is not only an embodied act, but cultural remnants that carry and reclaim the history and the values of his layered identities.