Abang-guard is a collaborative project between artists Maureen Catbagan and Jevijoe Vitug that explores the intersections of immigration, labor, and visibility. Reflecting on the artistic strategies of the avant-garde, they infuse personal history and art practice with critical humor to convey the complexity and nuances between cultural production, institutional structures, and the role of labor. The project began in 2017 through their occupation as museum guards. Abang-guard since then has exhibited and/or performed in venues such as the Queens Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Governors Island, Abrons Art Center Amphitheater, PS122 Gallery, Socrates Park, and Flux Factory in New York, UP Vargas Museum in the Philippines, and ARoS Public Atelier in Denmark.
Abang-guard Work Habits (ARoS), 2018. Single-Channel Video, TRT 3:03 min.
The video piece originated and was edited from a two-day performance at ARoS Public Atelier in Denmark. Abang-guard reflected on avant-garde artistic strategies by infusing personal history and art practice to convey with theoretical humor the complexity and nuances in the relationship between institutional structures and the role of labor. The piece explored the inner-life of guards as Abang-guard worked out, sang mash-up karaoke, and declared their philosophical thoughts while walking through galleries.
Makibaka, 2025. Mixed-media installation at Queens Museum, Queens, NY. Installation Photos: Hai Zang
Makibaka contends with Filipino visibility through the lens of immigration and labor. Through performance, painting, and sculpture, Abang-guard illuminates overlooked Filipino American histories that are inextricable from the fabric of America. The artists restage these narratives through the iconography of the Philippine and New York State Pavilions of the 1964–1965 New York World’s Fair.
Abang-guard utilizes 1965 as a critical nexus. That year, Filipino farm workers started the Delano Grape Strike in California, kicking off an unprecedented collaboration between Filipino and Mexican laborers that formed the United Farm Workers Union. Additionally, the 1965 Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act transformed Filipino occupational migration from farming to nursing. Integral to America’s progress, these extractive labor economies are rooted in the U.S. colonization of the Philippines from 1898–1946. Abang-guard memorializes these histories in multimedia installations by retooling landmark architecture and American Pop art from the World’s Fair.
Makibaka, roughly translated from Tagalog as “coming together for change,” is a rallying cry used by Filipino movements against exploitative systems and is woven into Abang-guard’s practice. Through this exhibition, the artists take stock of how Filipino American labor migration history has been lived, remembered, erased, and fought for.
Museum of Little Manilas, 2024. Stills from Performative lecture and workshop at UP Vargas Museum, Philippines. Duration 2 hours
Museum of Little Manilas, a series of projects that combines multi-media installations, performance, and social practice, alongside previous works. The project focuses on transnational place-making to commemorate and reflect on the overlooked histories of the diaspora of Filipino labor. The performative lecture was included a workshop that paid tribute to Nena Saguil, a Filipina artist who worked various odd jobs to pursue her artistic practice in Paris, France in the late 1950s. Inspired by Saguil’s 1954 relief print work “Tag-Ani sa Bukid” from the Jorge B. Vargas Museum permanent art collection. The workshop explored embodied gestures and movements associated with labor, harvest, and aspiration.
The Filipino Dream, 2024. Digital Stills from performance at Eskinita Art Farm, Batangas, Philippines. Duration 2 hours
The Filipino Dream is a participatory performance and social gathering staged during the Buklod forum at Eskinita Art Farm, Batangas, Philippines, in 2024. Conceived by Abang-guard, the project invited various artistic communities including Tuklas, Porac Young Artists, indigenous Ayta artists, and Kapampangan practitioners such as Herminigildo Pineda and Arnel D. Garcia to collectively reflect on the notion of the “Filipino Dream.” Prompted by the specter of the “American Dream”—a trope of meritocratic mobility often tied to migration the project asked: What is the Filipino Dream for those who have never left the archipelago?
Museo Pintados, 2024. Digital Stills from Performance at Topaz Arts, Queens, NY. Duration 2 hours
Museo Pintados highlights the repetitive aesthetics of Pintados (indigenous Filipinos with tattooed bodies) while interpreting its mark-making to explore contemporary motifs and patterns seen in the New York subway landscape. Performed at Topaz Arts in the Little Manila community in Queens, the participatory performance invited the mostly Filipino audience to contemplate and embody their Indigenous roots while integrating them into their present-day transnational experience.
No More 24! May Day Tapestry, 2023. Jacquard woven textile, 60 x 80 inches
Care Guardian Sculpture, 2023. 3D-printed resin, coins, porcelain, 16.5 x 11.5 x 10 inches
Incorporating museum objects and language, No More 24! May Day Tapestry and Care Guardian are alternate takes on The Met Museum’s European Medieval Unicorn Tapestries (1495-1505) and the Perminangken (19th-early 20th Century) from their Oceana collection. The reinterpreted objects highlight the physical and mental toll of immigrant caregivers within a colonial capitalist structure.
Handle with Care, 2023. Digital Stills from performance at 601 Artspace, NYC. Duration 1 hour
Handle of Care addresses the multi-layered meaning of the phrase in terms of the value imbued to narratives of museum objects as opposed to the stories of precarity of documented and undocumented immigrant workers within the American home care industry. The artists discussed their works featured in the exhibition, No More 24! May Day Tapestry (2023) and Care Guardian (2023), followed by a participatory movement exercise that included poetry by Louisa Lam and stories from NYC home care workers.
Abang-guard Street Museum, 2023. Digital Stills from performance at The Six Foot Platform, DUMBO, NYC. Duration: 6 hours
Abang-guard Street Museum is a participatory platform that enables the public to share their inner voice and creative expression via gallery format. Abang-guard features and guards each piece made by the public, providing an opportunity to showcase and uplift a diversity of voices while questioning what constitutes art and who can be an artist. Through democratic disruption, Abang-guard Street Museum empowers creativity while opening a wider field of access and authorship to the cultural production of value.
Little Manila Monuments, 2023. Multi-media installation at PS122 Gallery, NYC. Dimensions variable. Installation Photos: Etienne Frossard
Little Manila Monuments commemorate both the history and vital presence of the Filipino community in Woodside, Queens. The multi-media installation showcases the brick-and-mortar businesses in Little Manila, Queens as landmark monuments; paying tribute to the efforts of Filipino immigrants who built economic support networks that sustain their families and community. Abang-guard act as sentinels in front of restaurants and convenience stores, framing their significance as bridges and lifelines between families and their homeland.
Life Drawing Working Class, 2022. Performance Stills from Flux Factory at Governors Island, NYC. Duration 1 hour
Abang-guard invited Governors Island visitors to participate in a life drawing class with museum guards as models. The audience had an opportunity to develop their drawing and observation skills through examining Abang-guard’s form and uniform, highlighting the visibility of essential workers. The drawings were later exhibited at the Flux Factory gallery space.
Artists on Artworks: Abang-guard, 2022. Digital Stills from Performance at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC. Duration 1 hour
Abang-guard’s performative lecture on the works of Asian American artists in The Metropolitan Museum’s collection incorporated the artists’ experiences of living in New York, their stylistic connections to modern art, and how they negotiated their otherness within American history. Through movement and poetry, Abang-guard reflected on the dynamic legacy of Asian American artists both through their artistic practice and through their unique perspective as Museum guards at The Met.
America is in the Heart, 2021. Digital Still from Performance at Abrons Art Amphitheater, NYC. Duration 10 minutes
America is in the Heart explored the intersections between Filipinx American identity, history, and labor by combining a reading of Carlos Bulosan’s autobiographical novel (of the same title) with the embodied borders of Bruce Nauman’s Perimeter of a Square series. The piece was part of the Enduring Apocalypse (2020) performance marathon series curated by Jenna Hamed at the Abrons Art Center Amphitheater in New York.
Bahay Kubo on the Water, 2021. Digital Stills from Performance at Governors Island, NYC. Duration 2 hours
Part performance, part landscape painting, Abang-guard framed Bahay Kubo on the Water between the Manhattan and Governors Island waterfront. The painting symbolized the little known history of the first Filipino settlement in the United States. As part of the crew of the Manila Galleons of Spanish trading ships that traveled to America, the fishermen and sailors settled in Louisiana in 1763. Known as the Manilamen, they fought alongside Andrew Jackson to defeat the British during the War of 1812. By inserting Filipino history alongside the Statue of Liberty and Governor’s Island via museum format, Abang-guard weaved and highlighted the Filipino immigrants’ aspiration for independence, freedom, and opportunity as well as their dedication to defend it into the heart of the complex American fabric.
Museum Workers Manifesto Session 3: Potential of Work, 2020. Digital Stills from Performance at PS 122 Gallery, NYC. Duration 40 min.
In collaboration with Museum Workers Manifesto (2020) at PS122 Gallery, Abang-guard lead a performative lecture and guided meditation drawn from the writings of Filipino activist, Carlos Bulosan and experience as museum guards; connecting viewers to the physical, social, and psychological space of museums. After the performance, the audience reflected on the dynamics of the group-performance-art-work to pen together a section in the Museum Workers Manifesto in regards to re-imagining the role labor, the ritual of care, and the many ways in which this work can and should be acknowledged.
Abang-guard Stills @ Art Workers Lab, 2020. Digital Prints, 3 x 4 ft. each
Abang-guard Stills is a digital photography series that centers the movements of a museum guard amidst the cropped galleries of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The images were displayed as part of the Museum Workers Manifesto and Art Workers Lab (2020) at PS122 Gallery.
Daydreamer’s Manifestation Meditation, 2019. Digital Stills from Performance, 3 sessions 15 min. each
As part of the Flux Takeover! (2019) in Socrates Park, Abang-guard performed a guided meditation that referenced the precarious situation of immigrant dreamers while touching upon the themes of presence and empowerment; transforming the role of museum guards from protectors to producers of culture.
Abang-guard x ARoS Tactical Museum, 2019. Digital Stills from Performance, 1 hour
The project is a collaboration between Abang-guard and ARoS museum guards as a way to highlight the labor body within art institutions while subverting the current militaristic climate. Ramping up Marcel Duchamp’s La Boîte-en-Valise portable museum, Abang-guard roamed the galleries while wearing tactical vests containing videos and art works by ARoS museum guards.
Abang-guard x ARoS Tactical Museum Zine, 2019. Publication, 2.75 x 4 in. (with 8 x 11 in. fold out)
The zine documented Abang-guard’s performance and art collaboration with ARoS Museum guards. It is displayed as part of a wall installation for the RUB (2019) exhibition curated by Jei Triangular in Flux Factory in Long Island City, New York.
La Guardia, 2017. Mixed-media Installation, 2 wooden crate panels 10x12x2ft. each
For the Self-Storage exhibition at Flux Factory, Abang-guard propped two wooden crate cover panels against a wall that acted as a secret storage niche. The installation consists of hidden works by 12 POC museum guards that reflected their peripheral role in art economies and cultural aesthetics. Utilizing Abstraction, Abang-guard questioned and moved the dialogue towards the precariousness of the immigrant body.
POC-POC POP-UP!, 2017. Mixed-media Installation, 10 x 12 x 12 ft.
Made for the Self-Storage (2017) exhibit at Flux Factory, the installation was a collaboration with Bliss-on-Bliss that addressed themes of displacement and designations of value. Combining a high-low cross between Filipino ukay-ukay and designer couture shops, the gallery store within a storage space questioned and reclaimed the cultural designation of value as both high-end and mass produced goods are manufactured from the same factories in Philippines and China.
ZAPT (Zones of Art Practice Theory) Zine, 2017. Publication, 8.5 x 5.5 in.
The zine is the accompanying catalog for the POC-POC POP UP! and La Guardia installations for the Self-Storage Show (2017) at Flux Factory. The publication contextualized both installations within POC Abstraction and addressed the viewpoints of guards as artists and how they traverse their experiences between their artistic practice, heritage, and Western thought.
Object II Body Studies - Works in Progress, 2021
Object II Body Studies is a collaborative performance project with artist IV Castellanos that utilizes industrial objects found in various art institutions, restructuring their use to investigate the multiple dynamics between labor and tension. The movements focus on intimate object to body transfers. The project is a series of works in progress for the Flux Factory Residency in ARoS Museum in Aarhus, Denmark and Art Quarter Budapest in Hungary, Budapest.
Object II Body Studies - ARoS (1 minute excerpt), 2021
2013-2015
Founded in 2013, HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? is an evolving collective of multidisciplinary artists of the African diaspora who have lived and worked together, in various iterations, over the past twenty years. As a global laboratory, HDYSYIA? utillizes music, film, sculptural installation, contemporary dance, and theatre to experiment with linear narratives exploring multiplicity and alternate possibilities via abstraction.
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? - The Way Black Machine (web archive), 2014-present
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? - No Humans Involved, 2015
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? - Goodstock on the Dimension Floor: An Opera (film still), 2014
HOWDOYOUSAYYAMINAFRICAN? - Goodstock on the Dimension Floor: An Opera (film still), 2014
PXALM - Eclipse (extended version), 2020
PXALM is a dark-romantic experimental trio of Angel Favorite (vocals, electronic drums), Lee Sobarzo (keyboards), and Maureen Catbagan (vocals, bass). Music video for the song "Eclipse - extended version” was sourced and edited from public domain footage at archive.org.
Bloodflames - Infrequentseas, 2016
Bloodflames is a pentagonal burst of synths, harmonics and subsonic interference propelled through a wormhole into the multi-dimensional aspects of sounds inner heart beat. The band consists of Kobie Maitland (keytar), Angel Favorite (keyboards), Charlie Hobbs (theremin), Maureen Catbagan (bass and vocals), Dominika Ksel (beats and vocals). Album recorded by Marina Miranda, and mixed by Marina Miranda and Dominika Ksel.
Bloodflames with Wild Torus (performance still), 2016
Toi Toi Toi! , 2010
Girl rock swagger with Jenny Maurer (vocals and guitar), Maureen Catbagan (vocals and bass), Chris Peterson (guitar), and Ralph De La Rosa and Leslie Bernstein (drums).
Toi Toi Toi! @ Cakeshop, 2010
Bruises - Save That Bruise, 2006
Gritty punk trio consisting of Elisita Punto (vocals), Jenny Maurer (drums), Maureen Catbagan (bass). Album recorded by Jorge Dosvoto. Mastered by Pablito. Cover by Punto and Vasko. Printed at kayrock.org.
Bruises & Roxy Pain @ Exit Art, 2006
Poster by Elisita Punto and Kayrock.
Indie emo-rock trio comprising of Terry Walker (lead vocals, guitar), Dave Gould (drums), Maureen Catbagan (vocals, bass).
Underpup photobooth pic, 2010
