Kermit Tesoro

I found this while unpacking. Both literally and otherwise.

Therapy has been doing what it does best: making me look at things I neatly stored away and labeled “later.” Turns out “later” includes a few years of work I never really processed, let alone shared. Due to a mix of procrastination, hedonism, neurodivergence, and frolicking.

For a long time, I treated Instagram like a waiting room I never intended to enter. Damn, I was at the peak of hectic when social media was shaping up, I was busy working, which felt more urgent than documenting. But there's something quietly radical about having a space where the work isn't limited to a 7 to 10-minute runway slot and a few polite claps.

This piece is from one of those collections I never properly revisited. I remember being very committed to the idea of a heart, not metaphorically, but literally. As in cut open, dissected, exposed, translated into leather, and to make it commercially digestible, a little zhuzh from the fringe or tassels. A slightly diluted take on Gunther von Hagens' plastinated bodies. I'm a fan of Buffalo Bill, I hope that's not problematic. I wasn't particularly trend-conscious, which may explain a few things.

Anyway, this is me belatedly giving it a bit more air.

Not everything needs to be understood immediately. I guess, it's still isn't. Some things just need to be seen again.

P.S. Images were lightly enhanced with AI for clarity (two were originally uploaded to Facebook around 2011), with minor background blurring. Importantly, NOTHING altered in the work itself.

Model: Xtina Cruz
Photos: Bia Catbagan, Stylebible, Bruce Casanova

Very short notice. Berlin people, or people passing through. This is your cue!

Grateful to be part of this lineup, artists from different backgrounds and disciplines, all circling a similar idea.

Death: Yes? No? Maybe?

I'm showing my work (Mycornucopia). Drop in!

Not only am I a pretentious artist and a pretentious botanist. It seems I can now add "pretentious writer" to the résumé.
This is my first official write-up for a Euro-Filipino magazine: Roots & Wings, dedicated to all things basta Pinoy: arts, culture, lifestyle, and the in-betweens. My published rants and letters to Pulp Magazine and MTV ink (so antiquated, ang tanda ko na) of course, they don't count as literary milestones. The piece centers on a Pinoy restaurant in Berlin I return to whenever the craving for sinigang or lumpiang shanghai strikes. But more importantly, it traces the humble beginnings of a brave immigrant and the quiet persistence behind the plate. Have a read, please! Love you all!

Thanks to Ieth Inolino Idzerda for this opportunity, Tita Luz Bergersen for trusting, and PINOY Philippinische Spezialitäten for the warmest accommodation!