Bianca Carague is a Netherlands-based Filipino artist, social designer and builder of digital spaces for social impact. With a Master's degree in Social Design from the Design Academy Eindhoven (2020), she combines design, research and worldbuilding to tell stories about new possibilities for the future. Next to her projects and exhibitions, she leads workshops in Europe to engage young people in Futures Literacy through art. Through the combination of her work on Futures Literacy, Worldbuilding and Storytelling, Bianca is emboldening people to reflect on society and express themselves both on and offline.
Paraiso - ‘Paraiso’ was an online and print collaboration with Vogue Philippines that explored notions of place and identity online. It was a 12-page spread and special issue cover for the Vogue PH Dec ‘22 - Jan ‘23 issue.
For this project, Bianca Carague designed the virtual landscapes which housed avatars created by avatar designer Ivan Medrano and outfits digitally created by DressX and Lablaco.
The project and editorial aimed to reflect on the expression of Filipino identity in the metaverse through paradisical landscapes, AI generated avatars and digital contemporary interpretations of the ‘terno’, a traditional Filipino ensemble.
Somnium Treehouses - Oxidized copper 3D print of digitally sculpted treehouses.
Non-fungible Child - The 'Non-fungible Child' is part of Bianca Carague's solo exhibition Gen C: Children of 2050. Non-fungible Children (NFCs) are completely digital children with no physical bodies. One could describe them as futuristic Tamagotchis™. Discouraged by the state of the environment, parents of these kids opted for digital offspring because they deemed it unethical to bring new biological children into the world. These children live and play in the metaverse. They inhabit their parents' virtual real estate. They learn in the same metaverse schools and play the same online games as their human peers. Being artificially intelligent, they excel in play-to-earn games and grow their parents' digital assets and investments for fun.
Gen C: Children of 2050 - Kids are the future. Taking climate change as a starting point, what might their lives look like 30 years from now? How will they live, play and learn? What kind of world will they live in? Gen C: Children of 2050 was an interactive growing exhibition about the future of childhood. In this exhibition, artist and social designer Bianca Carague imagines four different types of children that could exist in the year 2050 and takes visitors through their bedrooms. Over the course of two months, Bianca Carague conducted interactive workshops which engaged the public in both critical and creative thinking about the future. The exhibition in June was different from the version in March, thanks to the hundreds of people that shared their insights & ideas, which I used to develop the work in between. This helped exhibition visitors cultivate their skills in futures literacy: imagining what could be.
Somnium Treehouses - Somnium Treehouses explored the possibilities for more intimacy between players and game world therapy in the virtual social platform Somnium Space. This was done by building an environment focused on intimate conversations and relationship counseling, where visitors of the platform could have meaningful encounters with strangers and interact with their therapist in a gaming environment. The serene environment and womb-like structures provided drastic contrast to the harsh spaces which are more common to the platform. In Somnium Treehouses, people got to know each other more intimately through floating question prompts in the environment. This project was done with support from Creative Industries Fund NL.
Folkfarma Medicine Pot - A 3D printed ceramic medicine pot which was part of the 'Folkfarma Kid' future in Bianca Carague's solo exhibition 'Gen C: Children of 2050". Folkfarma Kids are descendants of indigenous people that, after centuries of oppression, have reclaimed their rights to their land. They view nature as part of their wellbeing and share their indigenous knowledge with others. Naturally, they generate energy from the soil and make their medicine with local flora. Having lived through ecological disasters and political strife, they are comfortable navigating uncertainty and the complex nature of life.Folkfarma kids are generally self-sufficient, down-to-earth and wise beyond their years.
Folkfarma Future Flowers - As part of the 'Gen C: Children of 2050' exhibition, Bianca Carague developed these flowers of the 'Folkfarma Kid' future using insights from the workshops she conducted with young visitors of the exhibition.
Folkfarma Kids are descendants of indigenous people that, after centuries of oppression, have reclaimed their rights to their land. They view nature as part of their wellbeing and share their indigenous knowledge with others.
Naturally, they generate energy from the soil and make their medicine with local flora. Having lived through ecological disasters and political strife, they are comfortable navigating uncertainty and the complex nature of life.
Folkfarma kids are generally self-sufficient, down-to-earth and wise beyond their years.
Mind Tower - Mind Tower is a mental health-themed virtual escape room game where players solve puzzles while building self-compassion and empathy. The goal is to escape not the tower but the confines of one's mind.
Pro-Truth Society // Post-Truth Paradise - Pro-Truth Panopticon//Post-Truth Paradise is a virtual escape room game about Post-Truth Society.
It takes an optimistic approach to the dystopian narrative surrounding the post-truth narrative concerning conspiracy theories, fake news, synthetic media, propaganda, etc. Through my research on the mis/disinformation landscape, I imagined two possible utopias: the Pro-Truth Society built on collective fact-checking and the Post-Truth Paradise that, alternatively, focuses on the real perceivable consequences of our actions and beliefs.
Players of the game start with looking for ‘truth’ then move towards navigating complexity and uncertainty, helping them reflect on their relationship with the world and people around them.
By presenting two opposing utopias, players are invited to ask themselves, “Can they co-exist and should they?”
Bump Galaxy - Bump Galaxy is a virtual world for mental health built in Minecraft. It
took a bottom-up approach in dealing with mental health during the pandemic, such that it used a gaming environment to provide new physiological experiences of safety and social support through play.
