Ashmolean NOW: Pio Abad

10 Feb-8 Sep 2024

Overview

The second in the Ashmolean NOW exhibition series, where contemporary artists are invited to create new work inspired by the Ashmolean’s historical collections.

This exhibition, entitled To Those Sitting in Darkness, features new drawings and objects by London-based artist Pio Abad (b.1983).

Deeply informed by the history of the world and particularly the Philippines, where Abad was born and raised, his works draw out transnational lines between historical incidents and people, and our lives today.

Concerned with colonial history and cultural loss, Abad’s works are exhibited together with select works by other artists and ‘diasporic’ objects from Oxford collections, chosen by the artist.

The title ‘To Those Sitting in Darkness’ is a reference to American writer Mark Twain’s satire ‘To the Person Sitting in Darkness’ (1901), which strongly criticised imperialism.

Abad views the exhibition as an 'act of illumination that puts unexamined histories on display and addresses objects that have been confined to the margins of telling.'