16 Jul 10
I guess at some point they lacked the funding so the construction work stopped. Manila would be a perfect playground for Gordon Matta-Clark.
Some of these buildings can be in this half ’skeleton’ state for years before they tear them down. In the meantime in this particular one somebody has made the second floor his/her home. It can either be the owner of the lot or squatters. I heard that squatters have some rights when moved in. I have to do some research into that.
15 Jul 10
The typhoon caused a major brownout in Metro Manila. As always when feeling bored I turned to my camera. Lucky I fully charged my batteries before because a fire (!) earlier that day in my room killed all the chargers. I bought this amazing tie-dye lil’ blue onepiece and since it was too early to sleep decided to make a selfportrait.
We’ve been without electricity for about 20 hrs, some neighborhoods are still cut off. My aunt said that at the shopping malls they had their own generators so we could go there and charge all our phones, laptops and so. Apparently we were not the only one thinking so. There was even a lady who had a Mac-pro charger I could borrow since mine got killed during the fire. Nice place, good food, free wifi and plenty of power sockets!
12 Jul 10
I’m staying in one of the gated communities. The place is not what most people envision when thinking of Metro Manila. I’ve been here before and I’m aware of the big difference in income between the fortunate and well connected and the rest of the population.
I’m quite an attraction over here. There are hardly any foreigners in the neighborhood and beside that nobody walks. This city is simply too polluted! Everybody has their own way of moving in this city whether it is by car -with or without personal driver-, motorcycle, bus or jeepney. I even saw some daredevils cycling. I imagine that’s a good way of traversing this place where there’s always traffic but it would be mere suicide if I tried that.
I think it will be difficult for me to work here. Public transportation is bad and totally method to the madness, which I’m not even going to try to figure out. It’s also hot and best of all: it’s rainy season! So expect thunderstorms and heavy showers. I knew that before but as always I’ll find a way to work around it. On the other hand Filipinos are the nicest people. Always friendly and making a lot of bola bola (some sort of joking). I’ve been around my Philippine family long enough to get that mastered so I guess I can use that in my advantage.
10 Jul 10
The cans that arrived in the balikbayan box from California. It’s a great concept the whole balikbayan box and I find it so Filipino! Also some pics of MOA, Mall Of Asia which at one point used to be the biggest mall in Asia. Two years ago after it had been open for a year I was there when it was almost empty. Today I wasn’t there to take pictures since they had supersales! However I got a great idea when I saw this real estate seller. It has to do with my ‘After-hour shoppingmall’ series and the ‘Realestate sellers’ series I shot in Beijing.
02 Jul 10
For an assignment Daniela and me made a suit made out of boxes. This is what Frank and Stefan looked like after wearing it in these hot temperatures.
