Text by Kimmy Baraoidan and Chris Quintana
All photos by Chris Quintana

A diwata doll hangs from the ceiling of the Sining Makiling Gallery at UPLB during the run of the exhibition Philippine Tales Retold. Photo by Chris Quintana.

If you’re an early ‘80s kid or older—generations who played outside and went home reeking of sweat, the sun, the streets—and grew up in a rural area, you are most probably familiar with the enchanting entities and the frightening creatures of the night—the duwende, diwata, kapre, tikbalang, to name a few—that your mother used to say would take you away or eat you whenever you insisted on playing outside during nighttime.

Or perhaps your grandmother used to tell you these fantastic stories of a majestic bird that cracked open a bamboo tree where the first man and woman in the world emerged, of a terrifying dragon that tries to devour the moon every time a lunar eclipse happens, of seductive half-woman, half-fish creatures that lure lost men into oceanic oblivion.

Most kids of today probably never experienced the fear of and the fascination with these mythical beings and stories, what with the proliferation of Western-influenced modern mythology and folklore—pale-skinned vampires that prey on young girls and drink their blood; hairy, rabid, carnivorous werewolves that hunt down any warm, living, breathing, moving thing; disgusting non-sentient zombies that are driven by their insatiable hunger for fresh brains—hardly any mystique behind them.

The recent Philippine Tales Retold, an exhibition of artworks by members of Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang INK), reimagines Philippine folktales and folklore through modern visual art. The exhibition, which ran from February 6 through March 3 at the Sining Makiling Gallery, University of the Philippines Los Baños, could spark in the new generation of kids an interest in these centuries-old tales and creatures.