A Memorandum of Understanding, 2026 Cast silicone, Polypropylene boards, hospital curtains, printed textile, embroidery, digital audio
A Memorandum of Understanding
In 1973, the Marcos dictatorship sent roughly 600 Filipino nurses to 14 Vienna hospitals (Austria's so-called “First Batch”). In 2023, a new Memorandum of Understanding between the Philippines and Austria recruited another generation of Filipino nurses. Misa's installation centers the story of a “First Batch” nurse, Francia (“Fannie”), as told through her daughter, Lisa.
Twin silicone-cast 1980s-era boomboxes rest atop balikbayan boxes, playing looped audio that includes cassette recordings of a three-year old Lisa and her father made and sent back and forth between Austria and the Philippines. The boxes are partially surrounded by hospital privacy screens featuring photographs, embroidery, and the solihiya weave. Solihiya is particularly recognizable on Viennese café chairs as Wiener Geflecht (the Viennese weave), and Misa traces the pattern to the Philippines, challenging the Austrian claim to its Viennese origin.
This comission would not have been possible without the help and support of the Ante and Pangan family, Lisa and Ranilo, Fannie and Efren, who generously lent their stories.
Remittance is a traveling exhibition that explores the multifaceted impacts of remittances through artistic practice. A remittance is the transfer of money or goods by a foreign worker to an individual—usually a family member—in their home country. These transfers are a global phenomenon and a vital part of many nations' economies, sustaining millions of families worldwide. They provide essential income for households to cover basic needs like food, education, and healthcare and, beyond their financial dimension, embody profound acts of care and devotion.
The artists featured in Remittance each examine the experience of leaving home in pursuit of better wages, safety, or education, and the true costs of these transitions. The exhibition provides a platform for these specific topics—from Filipino domestic and healthcare workers seeking opportunities abroad, to the complexities of Indigenous nationhood within North America—that, together, map the legacies of global power structures shaping remittance economies. It examines economic necessity through the lens of familial debt and devotion, and in doing so weaves in critical issues related to migration, labor, gender, and socio-political histories.
Through installations and multimedia works, Remittance invites viewers to grapple with the forces that are driving labor migration and the realities faced by migrant workers. It explores themes of resilience, displacement, and interdependence, encouraging audiences to consider global implications and the enduring ties of family and community. In doing so, Remittance offers a poignant meditation on the bonds that connect us across time, borders, and generations.
The participating artists are: Pio Abad, Bhen Alan, Xyza Cruz Bacani, Victoria Grace Canby, ETC. Magazine, Frances Wadsworth Jones, Dejan Kaludjerović, Guadalupe Maravilla, Stephanie Misa, Rayyane Tabet, Keith Tallett, and Jenifer K Wofford.
Curated by Trisha Lagaso Goldberg
Photos by Mel Taing, Amanda Guerra and Stephanie Misa