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The ‘Sentinel’ sculptures of artist Briccio Santos watch over Legazpi Active Park

BY Lala Singian

February 14, 2025
5:52 pm

In an installation set to be installed for a year, these sculptures of Briccio Santos contribute to the growing landscape of Philippine art

“It’s the sentinels that cleared up the sky,” remarks Briccio Santos with a serene smile.

It had been drizzling earlier, with permit issues threatening to derail the planned shoot. Yet mysteriously, as the team prepared to document his installation, the clouds parted and bureaucratic obstacles melted away—as if the metal guardians themselves had intervened.

Santos (b. 1949) is a renaissance man in the Philippine art scene. A renowned filmmaker, writer, visual artist, and former chair of the Film Development Council of the Philippines, his contributions to Philippine cinema through film restoration and archival work have earned him knighthoods from both the French and Italian governments, having been named Chevalier dans l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur by the French President François Hollande and receiving the Ordine Della Stella D’Italia from the Italian president in 2016.

Briccio Santos — While Santos’ sculptural work began in 1978 with symmetrical wood pieces, he has since held 29 solo exhibitions throughout his career spanning painting, photography, and sculpture.

Santos was the first to begin film archiving in the Philippines when it had not been done before, after returning to the country from Germany and becoming a pioneer of independent filmmaking.

Despite his recent focus on visual art, including his February 2024 solo exhibition “The Sentinels” at León Gallery International, Santos remains deeply connected to film.

For the last eight years, he has served as a juror for the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong and has been involved with the Barcelona Asian Film Festival in Spain for the past seven years. His next cinematic venture, planned for July this year, will be “a modernized interpretation and tribute to Don Quixote” in a Filipino reimagining of Cervantes’ classic tale.

READ: Abstract amulets: The sculptures of Briccio Santos

The ‘Sentinels’ return

While Santos’ sculptural work began in 1978 with symmetrical wood pieces, he has since held 29 solo exhibitions throughout his career spanning painting, photography, and sculpture.

As part of Art Fair Philippines’ “10 Days of Art” initiative, Santos’ collection of metal sculptures aptly named “Sentinels” now stand watch over Legazpi Active Park since its installation last Feb. 10, 2025.

These Sentinels are incredibly heavy, requiring multiple machines for transport and installation, along with solid metal pedestals to support their weight. One of the imposing sculptures in red is set to soon be installed into the collection of the National Museum of the Philippines.

Santos cuts and colors these striking three-dimensional figures in metal, all in similarly fluid yet angular abstract forms and each imbued with their own specific intention the artist has transfused in his process.

“Each one I treat separately from each other,” Santos explains. “There’s a repetition in form, but the difference is where I create the distinct qualities, characters, and probably also intentions–what they should mean and what they should do, which is protecting.”

For this opportunity to showcase his work in such a prominent public space, Santos expresses gratitude to the founders of Art Fair Philippines he collaborated with. “My sincere thanks to Lisa Periquet and Trickie Lopa. I call them art angels and visionaries. The park open space offered to my ‘Sentinels’ is something I shall cherish as an artist.”

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The Zeitgeist of the time

The origins of the ‘Sentinels’ remain relevant to the zeitgeist of the time. Originally born as amulets or anting-antings during the pandemic in their outdoor gallery in Boracay, the small sketches evolved into sculptures looming over seven feet high. Since then, he has created 74 iterations of the grand metal sculptures.

“Four years ago, we went through terrible times with the pandemic,” Santos recalls. “At that time, we didn’t know when it was going to end, and everybody was under fear and anxiety. Needing protection of sorts for families, for ordinary people… This is how it evolved.”

Santos continues to create these sculptural embodiments of guardians in the ever-morphing challenges of the time. The artist describes them as having a “chameleon-like quality” that adapts to contemporary issues, made in metal that can endure the toughest conditions but with more beautiful, gentler sensibilities felt through its finer artistic qualities.

“These Sentinels are meant to be quantum forms merging with our reality as soon as they are observed,” Santos shares.

While the pandemic served as the initial catalyst, Santos sees his Sentinels as protectors against multiple contemporary threats, from environmental calamities to technology’s isolating effects and sociopolitical chaos.

READ: Conservator Margarita Villanueva on preserving the past, present, and future of Philippine art

Art as a portal to consciousness

In its current space in Legazpi Active Park, Santos opens up his work to the public.

“I firmly believe that in looking at things, something exists only because you’re observing it,” he explains, referring to concepts in both postmodern philosophy and quantum mechanics.

“The Sentinel becomes a portal to your consciousness. It enters your psyche. It’s just a form, but it has its own language. It’s already speaking for itself.”

When viewing the metal guardians, their qualities of comforting protection and guidance are meant to instigate personal, visceral change in the viewer. In the act of looking at the artwork, one is not meant to gaze without intention. Observing is meant to be active and engaged.

As the Sentinels continue their silent watch over Legazpi Active Park for the next year, Santos is ever busy and active in his artistic practices, as he plans for multiple upcoming artistic endeavors.

Alongside his contemporary cinematic reimagination of Don Quixote in July, he will join fellow artists Gus Albor and Rock Drilon for a joint painting exhibition at León Gallery International in December 2025. He is also preparing for a summer exhibition at Archivo 1984, which will be a continuation of his stunning 2021 book “Contemplating the Ineffable,” juxtaposing analog and digital photography.

At present, two of the Sentinels for the 10 Days of Art initiative are currently installed in the Seda Makati hotel. Later in February, he will be holding another solo exhibition at León Gallery International featuring even more Sentinels.

In just four years, Santos has created over 70 of these intricate sculptures, something that he admits has become akin to an obsession.

READ: Seasoned artist Phyllis Zaballero remixes past and present in new frames

“It’s an obsession of sorts—one I believe inspires others to explore its deeper meaning. I see it as a powerful metaphor, amplifying the essence of protection, guardianship, and vigilance in every endeavor.”

Santos recounts the story of a friend who wanted to see the tomb of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu. After a difficult two-hour climb up the mountain, he arrived and found just four words inscribed: “There’s nothing else.”

“That affected me a lot,” Santos says. With a contemplative pause, the artist adds his own coda, “There’s nothing else but art.”

For Santos, this all-encompassing philosophy reflects his personal belief in the capacity of art to transform as it engages with those who come across a piece of artwork. “The moment you observe, you have already changed the world.”

Briccio Santos’ Sentinels installation will be on view to the public at the Legazpi Active Park in Makati City as part of the “10 Days of Art” initiative and will remain on display for one year.