Marikit Santiago: Proclaim Your Death!

Marikit Santiago: Proclaim Your Death! is a major solo exhibition by Western Sydney-based artist Marikit Santiago, exploring themes of transformation, faith, and identity through immersive and collaborative art practices. The exhibition’s title refers to the memorial acclamation in the Catholic Liturgy of the Eucharist, invoking the death and resurrection of Christ as symbols of renewal and change. Santiago’s practice weaves together personal faith, cultural traditions, and the diasporic experience of her Filipino-Australian family, creating a space for reflection on displacement, survival, and the evolving nature of identity. The exhibition features new installations, commissioned paintings, and an interactive gallery that engages with the Western art-historical canon, particularly focusing on religious ideologies around life, death, and transformation. Santiago appropriates classical Western artworks from the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ collection, creating new narratives that interrogate historical biases and offer alternative perspectives. Through her work, Santiago examines the tensions within her plural identities as a first-generation Filipino-Australian and reflects on the complex intersections of culture, history, and migration.