AAA winners are meditations on colonial history, faith, and memory

ARTWORKS that ponder Philippine colonial history, personal and collective memory, and expressions of faith came out on top in the 2025 edition of the Ateneo Art Awards (AAA), held last Sunday at the Ateneo Art Gallery of the Ateneo De Manila University in Quezon City.

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The four main prize winners for the Ateneo Art Awards-Fernando Zobel Prizes for Visual Arts — given to artists for an exhibit of their works — were Jel Suarez’s As I Lift One Stone, Silke Lapina’s Bakit Pa, Hannah Reyes Morales’ Home Holds Still, and Uri De Ger’s Beauty Is In The Eye Of The Colonizer.

Nine residencies were also given out, including the No Space Residency in Baguio, Benguet, to Mr. De Ger; the ABungalow Residency in Talisay, Negros Occidental, to Ms. Morales; and Project Space Pilipinas in Lucban, Quezon, and La Trobe Art Institute in Bendigo, Australia, to Ms. Lapina.

Ms. Suarez received five residency grants, from CASA San Miguel in San Antonio, Zambales; Koganecho Area Management Center in Yokohama, Japan; The Creative Campus at Liverpool Hope University in Liverpool, UK; the Monsoon Southeast Asia Collection and LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore; and OCAD University in Ontario, Canada.

The winners were chosen from a shortlist of 12, which, in turn, were chosen from 158 nominees back in August.

Mr. De Ger’s