RECLAMATION: Exploring Filipino American Artistry in Ogden
By Darren Smith, Arts Reporter
May 3, 2026
In the industrial heart of Ogden, Utah, RECLAMATION transforms a former warehouse into a powerful meditation on diasporic resilience. On view at Ogden Contemporary Arts through today, May 3, 2026, the exhibition brings together three Filipino/Filipinx American artists—Lani Asunción, Camille Hoffman, and Kill Joy—whose works confront colonial legacies while forging paths toward cultural and environmental repair.
Curated by Kasey Lou Lindley, RECLAMATION is more than a group show; it is an act of remembering and resisting. The artists, connected through shared heritage and distinct practices, explore how personal and collective histories intersect with land, identity, and community activism. Lindley, Program & Communications Manager at the institution, described the exhibition as a platform for voices often separated from their ancestral narratives.
Lani Asunción’s immersive installations and performances anchor much of the exhibition’s emotional weight. Drawing from her background in performance and visual art, Asunción creates environments that blend memory with activism. Her newly commissioned site-specific installation, video, and earlier live performance Duty-Free Paradise engaged audiences with themes of migration, tourism, militarism, and belonging. Her large-scale works evoke disrupted landscapes—layered with imagery of oceans, mountains, and human figures—symbolizing both loss and reclamation of Philippine ecological and cultural heritage.
Camille Hoffman contributes vibrant, textured paintings and mixed-media works that pulse with color and contradiction. Her pieces layer urban and natural scenes, using thick impasto and collage to blur boundaries between paradise and development. Hoffman’s art grapples with the Philippine-American experience through lush compositions that hint at underlying tensions—gentrification, cultural hybridity, and the commodification of tropical imagery. A debut installation titled Traces incorporates salt from Utah, the Philippines, and Mexico alongside watercolor and photographic elements.
Kill Joy, a Houston-based street artist and muralist, brings bold graphic energy. Known for vibrant public works celebrating Filipino culture while addressing labor, identity, and community, her pieces include new installations and political prints merging social/environmental justice with Filipino folklore. Collaborative elements from participatory workshops feature Tagalog and English call-to-action placards.
Together, the three artists create a dialogue across mediums. RECLAMATION traces echoes of colonial history through land, identity, and labor, while proposing acts of repair. The exhibition aligns contemporary diasporic experiences with broader conversations about environmental justice and cultural sovereignty. Visitors encounter works that demand engagement rather than passive viewing.
Ogden Contemporary Arts, an independent organization dedicated to innovative programming, provides an ideal setting. Located in a revitalized industrial building, the venue’s raw architecture complements the artists’ use of scale and material. The exhibition opened February 6, 2026, with events including community workshops, artist lectures, and Asunción’s March 6 performance.
RECLAMATION expands the narrative of contemporary American art by centering Filipino American voices. It challenges institutions to consider diaspora as central to understanding identity today.
As the galleries close today, RECLAMATION leaves a lasting charge: to remember, resist, and rebuild. Asunción, Hoffman, and Kill Joy demonstrate that reclamation is ongoing—woven through performance, paint, and public gesture.
Visit Ogden Contemporary Arts for final hours or future programming. Support the artists: Lani Asunción, Camille Hoffman, and Kill Joy. Share this story and seek out diasporic voices in your community. In an era of division, such exhibitions model connection through creativity.
