Czarina Calinawagan has an artist-research practice in media arts through materials and approaches exploring auto-ethnography, archiving, spatial narratives, geolocative media and AR. Her research interests and writings also scope game cultures and Indigenous storytelling, and digital cultural heritage.
Her background in the visual arts with printmaking, illustration, and sculpture are also applied through experimentation with AR installations, 3D modelling, and other audio-visual text materials.
She earned her MA in Media Arts Cultures through the Erasmus Mundus high mobility scholarship program that took place Danube University- Austria, Aalborg University-Denmark, and Lodz University- Poland. Prior this, a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts- Visual Arts at the University of the Philippines-Baguio.
She was born in the Philippines, and is currently living in Rotterdam working on her art-research projects, and collaborating with artists and collectives.
Goethe-Investigating
Sentimental Archives investigates the ports as a space that harbours invisible stories and sentiments. By recollecting memories and letters of the artist-researcher about her late father working as a Filipino seafarer in cargo ships passing by Rotterdam, she seeks to contrast intimate memories with maritime infrastructures. Through this, reflecting on how can archives and data still be intimate and why materials bear sentimental value?