HEIDELBERG.- Heightening anticipation for its Guest of Honour role at the Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025, the Philippines presents Oculus, an exhibition that brings together moving image, research and installation to reflect on what it means to “see things.”
Artists Stephanie Misa and Joscha Steffens work out how seeing, shaped by both ecology and imagination, can give rise to visions. Oculus immerses audiences in a space where scientific knowledge and aesthetic education intersect, and where the line between real and spectral blurs.
One of the entry points of the exhibition is Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal’s ophthalmological studies in Heidelberg and his novel, Noli Me Tangere, parts of which he wrote when he was in the same city.
Curated by Patrick Flores, Oculus is a central feature in the Philippines' cultural program as Guest of Honour at the 2025 FBM. It resonates with the theme of the country’s participation: The imagination peoples the air (Fantasie beseelt die Luft), which was cited from the same novel by Rizal.
Oculus opened on March 15, 2025, 6:00 PM, at the Heidelberger Kunstverein and runs until May 18, 2025.
Misa is a Vienna-based Filipino visual artist, researcher and curator whose work centers on decolonizing methodologies. She examines phenomena related to the orality and richness of multilingualism.
Amsterdam-based German artist Steffens creates work about hidden communities that immerse themselves in an imaginary world, particularly the game world, focusing on those forms of gaming that require their members to immerse themselves completely in the skin of their avatar and transcend the limits of play.
Flores is Chief Curator of National Gallery Singapore and concurrently the Professor of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines and Director of the Philippine Contemporary Art Network. He was Curator of the Philippine Pavilion in 2015 and the Taiwan exhibition in 2022 at the Venice Biennale. Flores serves as the curator of the Philippine Pavilion for the country’s role as Guest of Honour at the 2025 FBM.
Reimagining Vision and Perception
Flores explains, “Seeing things can mean grasping objects visually to prove that they really exist in the world. But it can also be about sensing what lies beyond the visible. Oculus takes us through historical moments that both clarify and complicate our view, inviting us to explore new dimensions of thought and action.”
Steffens deepens this exploration during his research in the Philippines. In Mount Banahaw, he worked with the spiritual community Samahan ng Tatlong Persona Solo Dios of Kinabuhayan, who regard Rizal as a reference of the Filipino Christ and treat his writings, particularly Noli Me Tangere, as sacred. Published in Berlin in 1887, Noli Me Tangere played a critical role in inspiring the Philippine revolution against Spanish colonization.
Meanwhile, Misa delved into the archives of Heidelberg's Augenklinik to investigate Rizal's early medical work. Her installation reimagines the augenspiegel (ophthalmoscope)—invented in 1851 by the German physiologist Hermann von Helmholtz—as a multifaceted portal, encouraging viewers to explore the boundary between the literal retina and the metaphorical “mind's eye”.
Senator Loren Legarda, the visionary of the project states, “In Germany, the Philippines' Guest of Honour participation provides an insight into our literature and our culture, sharing with the world the intelligence of our people — one inspired by our heroes, our complex history, our multicultural reality, and the endless possibilities our talents can accomplish.”
