Julia Sevilla and Jackie Arceo’s Local Edition is not just a coffee shop.
“It’s a place where people can gather, be inspired and create,” says Julia. “Our mission is really to inspire people to be more creative not just with our food and drinks, but with our space.”
Since opening in June 2014, Local Edition has, every couple of months, allowed artists and designers to use its space as a blank canvas for interactive installations. Previously, it has worked with Purveyr and Rags2Riches Inc.
Purveyr’s installation celebrated creative pursuits and asked people: Are you doing what you love?
Rags2Riches Inc.’s setup paid tribute to weaving and encouraged people to “weave their own story with others.”
“There’s always a theme behind it. We don’t want it to be just beautiful, there has to be a deeper meaning,” says Julia.
Beginnings
Local Edition’s newest collaboration is with students from the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Fine Arts headed by Monica Magsanoc. They were asked to work on the theme “beginnings,” which Monica thought was perfect. “We’re students… technically, we are still beginning.”
“Be Bold and Begin,” their installation urges people—the giant letters surrounded by intricately designed paper flowers and leaves.
“We love the idea of using flowers to represent beginnings, how they start from nothing, just a small seed, and how they bloom,” says Monica. “It’s a really good symbolism, that everything starts small.”
The sophomores—Monica, Glendford Lumbao, Pamela Beatriz Vicente, Dani Joyce Rodriguez, Daniela Millar, Kristina Marie Mateo, Dominique Martine Esguerra, Carl Joseph Rafael Nacpil and Farah Elicia Baldos—spent a couple of weeks painstakingly handcrafting the flowers for their installation.
To make the flowers look as realistic as possible, the students experimented with different techniques.
“Everything is made of paper,” the group members stress. “Nothing is printed, nothing is drawn.”
They made daisies and gumamela, everlasting and the challenging rafflesia—which the group wanted to add “to integrate nationalism.”
“It’s not a pleasant flower,” they say. “It’s the hardest one to make pretty.”
Growing garden
The installation will be up until the first week of April, and people can continue to go to Local Edition, enjoy their coco ginger tea (their take on salabat), tablocha (coffee infused with tablea chocolate), black oolong latte or the ice cream flavors Fog City Creamery has customized for them (Perea coffee and Earl Grey) and become part of the installation.
People can add to the students’ growing garden by responding to the question, “What will you do today that you can be proud of tomorrow?”
The answers, which will be collected in a bowl with a sign that reads “Seeds Here,” will be turned into flowers and posted on the wall.
Each colorful piece of paper has a reminder for everyone: “At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.”
“We’ll have a wall of commitments and promises. It can be something super simple that can bloom into something big after. We encourage everyone to join. We want the concept of beginnings to really just push people to start,” says Monica.
For the students and for Local Edition, the project isn’t just about pretty flowers.
“With our installation, we want others to be inspired. We just want our message to be heard,” says Monica.
Local Edition is at 116 Perea St., Legaspi Village, Makati; tel. 5569655. Use the hashtags #UPCFAStudentsxLocalEdition #Unfold2015.