After an early career as a minimalist, Villa’s turn toward cultural expression was influenced by his study of Oceanic and African art to fill in the lacuna of Filipino art in art historical narratives.

Vina Orden
Vina Orden documents the Filipino American community for aaww.org’s The Margins (where she is a 2022 Open City Fellow), aaari.info’s CUNY Forum, asianjournal.com, thefilam.net, hellapinay.com, and elsewhere. She uplifts emerging Asian American writers as an Editor for poetry and creative nonfiction for slantd.com’s magazine. She also is a painter and a member of the We Make America feminist artist/activist collective. Learn more about her work at vinaorden.com.
In Manhattan, a Makeshift Forest Is Haunted by the Ghosts of Imperialism
The location of Maya Lin’s “Ghost Forest” next to the Flatiron building evokes for me, a Filipina American, the legacy of the architect Daniel Burnham.