A monumental sculpture reimagines care, memory, and resistance through the quiet ritual of delousing.
By Dara Clariza Evangelista
In the natural world, many animals, especially primates, engage in grooming not just for hygiene, but to build trust, reinforce social bonds, and protect one another. It’s an act of closeness, instinctive and intimate.
For many Filipinos, that same gesture lives in memory: afternoons spent on the floor while a mother, grandmother, or aunt combed through your hair, picking out lice with her fingers or a fine-toothed comb. Sometimes she would tell a story. Sometimes she would hum. Sometimes she would quietly scold you for not washing your hair. But always, it was an act of care, slow, patient, and deeply rooted in love.
In Debugging, artist Toym Leon Imao transforms that familiar ritual into a towering act of resistance and remembrance. The sculpture presents six larger-than-life figures stacked beside a spiral staircase, each absorbed in delousing the exposed brain of the next. With gold wireframe glasses and sculpted brains in hand, each figure becomes both literal and symbolic, removing falsehoods, revisiting memory, and restoring clarity one head at a time.
From the ground upward, the scene unfolds: a child sits barefoot, eyes lowered, as an elder tends to them. Two dogs rest nearby, silent companions in this act of scrutiny and tenderness. Above, the chain continues through generations, their expressions calm, focused. At the top, a monkey clutches a brain in its hands, echoing the action and suggesting a quiet commentary on instinct, surveillance, or repetition.
The artist behind this powerful piece, Toym Leon Imao, is a multi-awarded cultural worker, storyteller, and educator known for his monumental public artworks that bridge Philippine history, political commentary, and personal memory.
An assistant professor at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, Toym is also chairperson of the UP President’s Committee on Culture and the Arts. His work is deeply informed by architecture, cultural heritage, and lived experience, drawing from mentorships under National Artists Napoleon Abueva, Alejandro Roces, and his own father, Abdulmari Asia Imao.
Curator Avie Felix leads guests through the Philippine Pavilion, unveiling “Debugging” to an international audience.
Originally exhibited at the Philippine Pavilion of the 15th Gwangju Biennale, Debugging reflects on six defining moments after Philippine “independence.” Rooted in domestic memory and cultural critique, it responds to the rise of disinformation and historical revisionism with metaphor and scale.
Made of polymer resin and steel, the sculpture stands 12 feet tall, designed in three modular parts for international transport. The spiral staircase at its side evokes movement—cyclical, upward, uncertain.
As the Philippine delegation prepares for the homecoming exhibit of Locations of Freedom this August, a limited number of smaller versions of Debugging have been produced to support fundraising efforts. These collector’s pieces serve not only as artworks but as keepsakes of resistance and remembrance. To reserve one, contact Uriah Carlos at 0917-5798768.
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