Josephine Turalba’s body of work moves across performance, installation and mixed media. The interdisciplinary artist dedicates her art to the exploration of issues on division and convergence within a volatile geopolitical world order. She ponders, “The imbalance of power and the abuse of authority intrigue and provoke me. The tensions in the West Philippine Sea, where nations stake relentless claims on shoals and fragile ecosystems, challenge us to perceive them as raw and vulnerable rather than as possessions to be controlled and occupied.”

Turalba has been a scuba diver since age 12. As she contemplates power struggles over contested waters, Turalba reframes these conflicts through leather and bullet shell tapestry. She conjures a universe that is vivid in color and brimming with underwater life. Here, weapons are transformed into symbols of resilience, transformation, strength and survival. Josephine’s visual narratives also ask viewers to reflect on the fine line between fragility and fortitude.

For over a decade now, the contemporary Filipina artist and academic has been a steady presence at major international exhibitions and biennales. She presented Scandals at the Venice Biennale (2015), featuring spent bullet casings repurposed into wearable art objects.

For the Nakanojo Biennale (2025), she unveiled Drifting Threads and Topographies. This installation of 10 pina silk panels were produced with weavers in Lumban in Laguna and Aklan along with the embroiderers in Taal, Batangas, creating links between local sites shaped by water and craft.

Turalba has also participated in the Cairo (2010), London (2016), Tashkent and Canakkale (2018) biennales.

Last year, she debuted at Art Basel Hong Kong with 10 Chancery Lane Gallery (Beauty Will Save The World, curated by iola Lenzi) alongside seven of Southeast Asia’s most exciting contemporary artists.

This March, Josephine returns to Art Basel Hong Kong with four new pieces — Waterworks, PolySea, Fins and Verdicts, as well as Strait Lines. Each of her works consistently amplify themes on territory, ownership, and geopolitical power. They also reflect human ambition and authority as seen and told through a hydrofeminist lens.

Informed by her research of waters marked by competing claims, Turalba’s underwater creatures mirror human political tensions and disputes. She writes: “These creatures act as simple mirrors to human interventions; creating borders, enforcing land ownership, policing populations, and performing the motions of justice. Lacking the sophistication and the language of humans, they present play-like scenes. Shrimps construct an underwater wall, crabs and lobsters capture plankton, a nudibranch presides over a court house. In the irony of their crude mimicry, they pose a question of the necessity and justification of such human actions.”

Leather, grommets and brass bullet heads add texture and visual vibrance to each of her canvases. They also underscore irony as softer, fluid elements merge seamlessly with harder, more solid materials. Across this new series from Josephine Turalba, conquest is not dramatic. She intimates, “It subtly persists, embedded in both the material and the motion of the underwater realm.”