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What does democracy look like when artists stop illustrating it as it is and start reimagining it as it could be? How can every person see and feel democracy as a lived experience daily?
From August 21 to 23, 2026, a dynamic mix of emerging, mid-career, and established Filipino illustrators and visual artists from across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao came together for SPRINTS, a 48-hr challenge and creative bootcamp for artists in various cities around the world to imagine new possibilities for democracy through art.
This year’s global theme, Reimagining Democracy, asked a simple question: What if democracy could be different?
Rather than illustrating democracy through its familiar symbols and institutions, artists Cyrill Acuña, Jill Arteche, Alyssa Babasa, Maki Cabrera, Anjella Cruz, Ed Empemano, Ish Flores, Kieltokki, Kirsten Mago, and Ruer Torculas were invited to imagine new ways for people to participate, deliberate, decide, and shape the societies they live in. Over one productive weekend, they turned ideas into images, questions into visual narratives, and possibilities into something people could actually see.
SPRINTS in the Philippines was organized by DAKILA – Philippine Collective for Modern Heroism, in collaboration with global creative studio Fine Acts and the One World or None initiative. The Philippine edition held in the community space of Alon and Araw forms part of a global SPRINTS movement spanning more than 10 countries, bringing artists together around urgent social questions and giving them the space to respond through their own creative language.
The SPRINTS artworks are now being presented simultaneously across three creative spaces in the Philippines. Rather than being confined to traditional gallery spaces, the exhibitions use outdoor displays and banner formats to bring the artworks directly into public spaces and make them accessible to pedestrians and wider audiences.
LUZON — Commune, Metro Manila
VISAYAS — Arts and Design Collective, Dumaguete
MINDANAO — La Herencia, Davao
Together, these exhibitions form a kind of creative flag planted across the archipelago: a declaration from Filipino artists that democracy is not a finished picture. It is something we can question, redraw, and build again.
Elvin Macanlalay, Creative Director of DAKILA, on how else artists can express their perception of democracy.
“The outdoors, the banner material, and the overall exhibit design are also intended as a way to reimagine democracy. Particularly, with the idea of art having more open access to the public, in contrast to the traditional white-walled spaces which can unintentionally be exclusive,” Macanlalay added.
The public exhibition runs for the entire month of September and features works created by the 10 SPRINTS artists, alongside five collaborative works produced during the bootcamp. The exhibitions also feature additional works from homegrown artists at each location, including Red Genotiva and Noi Narciso from Davao, as well as guest artists from different cities and provinces, including Jonas Tugab, Cleo Manansala, and Airish Tayag.
Together, the exhibitions present not one singular vision of democracy, but many—bringing together different places, perspectives, experiences, and imaginations through simultaneous satellite exhibitions across the country.
“By bringing in this kind of art activation format in our country and intentionally contextualizing it on a local and community level, we have created a more grounding space to work on something genuinely close to most people’s lived experiences during a critical period wherein our democracy should be felt and not just remain as discussion points within the confines of high-profile symposiums, international convenings, and the like. SPRINTS demonstrates that artists can truly reimagine systems, spark dialogue, and make complex ideas more accessible and engaging,” said Ralph Eya, Artist-organizer and SPRINTS Coordinator in the Philippines.
All artworks created through SPRINTS are published under an open license on TheGreats.co, the global platform for free social-impact visuals. The works can be freely used and adapted for non-commercial purposes by activists, educators, nonprofits, journalists, and community organizations around the world, allowing these ideas to travel far beyond the exhibition walls.
“SPRINTS ultimately asks artists to do what artists have always done: look at the world we have been given, then dare to picture another one. True to working with One World or None, as a statement in its own name, this September 15, 2026, across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, those pictures go one with the public,” Eya concluded.
The works invite audiences to look beyond democracy as ballots, elections, governments, and institutions, and toward the everyday spaces where people negotiate how they live together. Through their varied perspectives and visual languages, the artists imagine democracy as something more participatory, more deliberative, more human, and perhaps more possible than the versions inherited today.
For media inquiries and further information, please contact:
Elvin Jay Macanlalay
DAKILA
elvin@dakila.org.ph
09666745544
ABOUT DAKILA
DAKILA is an organization of artists-activists, educators, and individuals building a movement of heroism toward social transformation. It fosters active citizenship by building one’s capacity to make change, organizing communities to be part of the movement for change, and leading advocacy campaigns that bring about strategic actions for real change.
