Fóram Idirnáisiúnta ar Thaighde Ealaíonta 2026
An 17ú Comhdháil de chuid Chumann na Taighde Ealaíonta (SAR)
Submission Number: 288
Submission ID: 352
Submission UUID: e2c2244d-ceb5-42be-a0de-877b24bbccb0

Cruthaithe: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 - 03:29
Déanta: Sun, 1 Mar 2026 - 05:18
Changed: Sat, 6 Jun 2026 - 10:05

Remote IP address: 138.84.78.88
Submitted by: jturalba
Teanga: English

Is draft: Níl
Current page: webform_confirmation

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Given name Josephine
Surname Turalba
Email jturalba@pwu.edu.ph
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Title Speculative Glossary of Hybrid Marine Life: Preserving The Endangered Knowledge of the West Philippine Sea
Format Other format
Main language English
Abstract The West Philippine Sea is a militarised and heavily trafficked maritime corridor where geopolitical force, ecological precarity, and fisher livelihood collide, and official vocabularies often fail to hold lived experience. Media narratives are easily manipulated, while the knowledge of those who work the sea is embodied and intergenerational, hard to document without flattening it. This knowledge lent itself to subjective mapping, where lived experience is treated as data rather than noise. The mapping process documents movement, risk, and survival at sea: tides, tuna highways, fish as product vs crew sustenance, foreign vessels, and no-go zones. The process then evolves through speculative image-making and iterative studio-led inquiry into a glossary of artist-imagined hybrid sea creatures, grounded in situated observation and circulating coastal narratives.These imagined creatures draw from Philippine mythology, real marine life, and the lived experience of those affected by the territorial frictions in the area. The creatures operate as composite witnesses shaped by militarisation and encroachment, making conditions perceptible without reducing them to policy speech or media templates. Their playfulness makes trauma legible without turning it into spectacle; it registers the sea’s trauma, its inhabitants, and those who rely on it.Removed from the context of the artwork, the glossary of creatures preserves this endangered conceptual world in an alternate way. The glossary is not stagnant. Creatures are added and altered with every iteration and representation across different artworks. Collaboration and co-thinking push new forms of invention, and new ways of naming pressure, adaptation, and survival. Each iteration is used to reveal something different within the context of a given piece. This fluidity of the glossary is precisely what makes it an endangered conceptual world: it is continually pressured by militarisation, ecological loss, and narrative capture.
Image jturalba__Speculative_Glossary_of_Hybrid_Marine_Life:_Preserving_The_Endangered_Knowledge_of_the_West_Philippine_Sea.png
Short biographies of the presenter(s)
  • Josephine Turalba is a Filipina interdisciplinary artist, PhD candidate in Studio Art at Burren College of Art, University of Galway, and Director of the Artistic Research Center at Philippine Women’s University. Her practice-based research develops speculative, hydrofeminist approaches that use play as a critical method to engage with trauma, power, and minor epistemologies. Grounded in situated knowledge and lived experience, her work explores how artistic research can open alternative ways of sensing, narrating, and understanding sociopolitical realities in the West Philippine Sea.
  • Ari Turalba is an emerging interdisciplinary artist whose work moves across photography, film, graphic design, fashion and jewelry design. Trained in film production, she maintains an open and evolving practice shaped by experimentation, collaboration, and project-based making. Her work does not follow a single fixed medium, but develops through different visual forms depending on the needs of each project. She has works closely with her mother, Josephine Turalba on a range of artistic research projects, contributing through visual development, photography, design, and production support. Alongside this collaborative work, her current independent research focuses on nightlife, urban youth culture, and gendered spectatorship in Poblacion,
Previous presentations or iterations of the research An earlier iteration of this research was presented at the APARN Conference 2025 (Asia Pacific Artistic Research Network, a SAR Special Interest Group), discussing initial subjective mapping methods (pp. 1145–1154). The current submission extends the project by foregrounding minoritised epistemologies and endangered conceptual worlds in the West Philippine Sea, situating the work within ongoing SAR dialogues while introducing new experimental methods and experiential outputs.
Additional information N/A
Spatial and technical requirements 15-20 minute AV presentation (online). If the presentation will happen in person, I will require a smart TV or Projector for visual aids and microphone if the space requires it. I also have hanging works that can be displayed in support of my talk. For this I will need a wall or 4x8 wall panel.
Potential risks or ethical concerns N/A
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Fóram Idirnáisiúnta ar Thaighde Ealaíonta 2026
An 17ú Comhdháil de chuid Chumann na Taighde Ealaíonta (SAR)

Welcome to SAR 2026

Endangered Conceptual Worlds

The 2026 International Forum on Artistic Research takes place from 23 to 26 June 2026. Hosted by the University of Galway on the Atlantic coast of Ireland, the Forum addresses the challenges of Endangered Conceptual Worlds. As the 17th annual conference of the Society for Artistic Research it is the largest conference on practice-based research within and through the arts, bringing together more than 300 international participants: leading practitioners, scholars and policymakers from the entire range of arts-based disciplines.

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Slightly extended deadline for submissions

The 2026 Forum on Artistic Research website has been inaccessible for several hours on Friday night and Saturday morning. Unfortunately, an update to the web server was scheduled to take place, which automatically activated maintenance mode and prevented any work on the submissions during the night and the next morning. We have therefore decided to slightly extend the deadline for submissions to Monday 2 March 2026 at 23:59 GMT. Feel free to work on your proposals until then.