BERLIN, GERMANY – Entering his fourth year as a full-time artist after leaving the ocean, seafarer-turned-artist Joar Songcuya is gaining global recognition following his selection for this year’s ‘Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests’ exhibition and research project curated by Cosmin Costinas at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Germany.
This marks Songcuya’s first institutional exhibition in Europe, building on his previous showcase ‘At the Edge of Land,’ with his Passage to Suez series curated by Lucas Morin at the prominent institution in the Middle East, Jameel Arts Centre, UAE, and Hayy Jameel, Saudi Arabia. In 2024, he was also featured as the sole Filipino artist in a solo project ‘Pilgrimage to the Ancient Seas’ with Wan Gallery at Art Central Hong Kong, and his story as a sea-based migrant worker was highlighted in Filipina-Canadian artist Stephanie Comilang’s film ‘Search for Life I,‘ which premiered at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, Spain.
Born from a five generation fishing and farming family on Panay Island , Songcuya’s mother worked as an overseas foreign worker in Asia for over 15 years, the first in their family to venture abroad and obtain a passport. At 19, Joar embarked on his first ship assignment after getting a Norwegian sponsored marine engineering scholarship traveling to ports in Asia, South America, Africa, and Australia becoming the second in his family to hold a passport. After over a decade of traveling that spanned over 50 countries and 90 global ports, Joar transitioned into an artist.
Exhibition photos by Gabriel Carasso
An excerpt from Cosmin Costinas’ curatorial note, “Musafiri: Of Travellers and Guests calls attention to those stories rendered invisible in the ‘underside’ of globalization, namely those of migrant workers—the anonymous builders of infrastructure, the logistics workers, and the ‘essential workers’ (to use recent pandemic verbiage), either in the far away cities of their own countries (such as the tens of millions of internal migrants who have left rural areas for the Chinese metropolises), in the newly developed regional axes of migration, or along the more historical imperial routes. The works in the exhibition similarly give voice to the stories of people who ensure these very flows, such as the Overseas Filipino Workers who form around a third of the total staff of the entire shipping world. Finally, the exhibition traces the journeys of those who have been forced, by sheer coercion or circumstances, to leave their homes and take up arms in faraway places under foreign flags, from the millions who fought for colonial empires in world wars, to the Nepalis currently engaged by Russia to fight in Ukraine.”
Highlighted at the exhibition ,“Joar Songcuya is one of many from the Philippines to have begun a career as a sailor and marine engineer on the open seas. Through his familiarity with waterways and port cities, he spun a web of connections, both naval and personal, across the globe. As a way of passing time, at the end of his shifts, he began recording his experiences on canvas, which continue to occupy a central role in his artistic career today. His work reveals how variously the sea can confront different people—it can be a yearned-for escape or a life-threatening natural force; a space of loneliness or of freedom. The works exhibited here reflect this ambivalence. While Pasipiko II (2021), with its pastel-coloured sky and shallow sea flecked with small whitecaps, conveys a sense of an almost idyllic place, Atlantiko II (2021) radiates the sheer power and violence of the ocean, rendered in broad brushstrokes and darker shades of blue for the towering waves. The artist’s oeuvre also extends to figural depictions, such as the painting A Splash on Deck (2021), which depicts a person labouring on a ship’s deck. Songcuya’s work, at first glance, appears to engage primarily with ‘water’ as a natural force and with his experiences as a sailor, but its scope expands when considered in a geopolitical context, opening up new worlds that raise questions about colonial continuities, Filipino labour migration, statelessness, and living and working conditions at sea.”
Reflecting on his latest milestone, Joar shares, “As I sat on my connecting flight from Istanbul to Berlin for the exhibition’s opening, where I was invited as one of the speakers , I gazed at the in-flight screen displaying the bodies of water and European regions below, it was very surreal to think that my last flights in Europe was being a seafarer and I am now traveling as an artist. My last visit to Germany was through a container port. To be met with such support – having my work showcased, being flown out of the Philippines, and having my story heard – it brought me this sense of comfort and affirmation that the sacrifices I have made to pursue art is all worth it.
Songcuya is currently working on two significant projects: his Seamanship Project , an ongoing exploration of water, maritime labor, and global ports, and his Island series, a new body of work that reflects on his island roots, family narratives, and the regional waters that flow into the global waters.
“Musafiri: Of Travelers and Guests” exhibition and research project features over 40 artistic positions , accompanied by an expansive cultural education programme including tours, workshops, and conversation formats throughout its duration.
Contributing international artists include: Ulf Aminde, Alibay Bapanov, Sonia E. Barrett, Aslı Çavuşoğlu, Musquiqui Chihying, Narcisa Chindoy, Julien Creuzet, Ena de Silva, Roy Dib, Bekhbaatar Enkhtur, Aboubakar Fofana, Simryn Gill, Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju, Hit Man Gurung and Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Yun-Fei Ji, Choy Ka Fai, Sachiko Koshikoku, Akinori Nakatani, Massao Okinaka, Yuji Tamaki (project by Yudi Rafael), Lawrence Lemaoana, Idas Losin, Ana Lupas, Gail Mabo, Maria Madeira, Mohammad Din Mohammad, Carlos ‘Marilyn’ Monroy, Diane Severin Nguyen, Haji Noor Din, Jimmy Ong, Anne Samat, Citra Sasmita, Joar Songcuya, Simon Soon, Nádia Taquary, Robel Temesgen, Ryan Villamael, Ocean Vuong, Razakaratrimo Zoarinivo (known as Madame Zo).
The exhibition opened last 8th of March and will be on view until the 16th of June 2025.
