Article by: Jeminah Birkner, Isla Magazine
Photography: Geraldine Hutt
Model: Isa Tabasuares
Before smartphones, before Wi-Fi, before migration became a necessity, there was a time. A time when afternoons smelled of sun-warmed ylang-ylang, and children traced the edges of banig mats with their fingers, listening to the lull of their Lolo’s kwentos. A time when letters from abroad came scented with the hopes of OFWs and postmarked with love. When family portraits hung in wooden frames carved from Narra, and the only screen you stared at was a Capiz shell window catching the gold of a late Manila afternoon.
This is the world Pag-Asa dares to remember, and reimagine.
Through the eyes and lens of Geraldine Hutt, a Berlin-based Filipina-German photographer, Pag-Asa is not just a photo series. It is an invocation, a healing, a mirror held gently before a diasporic soul longing for home. It is a tribute to the beauty, complexity, and resilience of Filipino culture. But above all, it is hope, dressed in light and shadow.
The story of Pag-Asa begins like many stories of the diaspora, with coffee and longing. “In early 2024, I was having coffee with my friend Amando, who would later become the Art Director,” Geraldine recalls. “We talked about how we were both craving a project that speaks of our roots.” That seed of a conversation grew into months of research, sketching, dreaming.
She found her muse in Isa Tabasuares, a Berlin-based singer, painter, mental health advocate, and author of Kaleidoscope. The two connected not just through shared heritage but through shared healing. “Isa’s advocacy for mental health moved me,” Geraldine says. “It aligned so perfectly with the emotional undertone I wanted Pag-Asa to carry.”
The word “pag-asa” — hope, became a compass.
But this wasn’t just a glossy photoshoot. This was emotional labor. Pag-Asa became a space to hold grief, memory, identity, and joy, all at once. It’s the rare kind of art that touches the spirit like the smell of sinigang on a rainy day, familiar, warm, and full of meaning.
The Kaban, Where Memory Lives
To help dress this dream, Geraldine collaborated with Bree L. Esplanada, a designer from Cebu who created garments inspired by the Kaban, the traditional Filipino chest or trunk where linens, photos, and secrets were once kept.
“These pieces are like time capsules,” Geraldine says. “Bree’s vision, merged with my hand-painted backdrops and the textures of old postcards and family heirlooms, created this dreamlike world. It felt like visiting the Philippines of my childhood, only reimagined through an adult lens.”
Indeed, the garments in Pag-Asa don’t just clothe the model, they clothe memory. Through Isa’s poses, each dress tells a story, of a daughter dancing in the sala while her mother sews curtains, of postcards sent from Jeddah to Iloilo in the 90s, of a child being bathed in a palanggana under the stars.
Nostalgia as Resistance
There’s something magical, even rebellious, about looking backward in a world obsessed with moving forward. In Pag-Asa, nostalgia is a tool, a kind of soft resistance. “I believe art is both healing and resistant,” Geraldine reflects. “We live in a capitalist, post-colonial world that often treats our stories as afterthoughts. But through art, we claim space. We become visible.”
Her photography, rich with sepia tones and soft shadows, feels like a memory you forgot you had. A dream you wake from smiling, but also aching. That tension, of joy and pain, of past and present, is what makes Pag-Asa unforgettable.
The Power of the Diaspora
This project was not a solo flight, it was a constellation of diasporic talent. Each team member brought something to the table, makeup, styling, production, art direction, all colored by memories of growing up Filipino in various corners of the world.
“I asked everyone to share what they associated with Filipino heritage,” Geraldine shares. “Even the non-Filipinos on set brought objects they had researched or encountered. It was like building a puzzle of memory together.”
For those far from home, Pag-Asa offers a balm. It reminds us that Filipino identity is not confined to a geographic border. It breathes in every child speaking Bisaya in Berlin, every balikbayan box packed with care, every painting Isa puts to canvas, every poem, every photo.
This isn’t just an art piece for galleries. It’s a love letter to anyone who has ever whispered, saan ba talaga ang uwi?, where is home, really?
“I want Pag-Asa to remind Filipinos everywhere that we belong,” says Geraldine. “That we are part of the story, not a footnote. I hope it encourages people to dare to be seen.”
And isn’t that what hope really is?
A hand reaching back in time, pulling forward what is good, what is true, what is beautiful, and making it new again.
Pag-Asa is not just the name of a photo series,
It’s a quiet revolution,
A song hummed in the kitchen while rice cooks,
A picture of your mother in her saya, laughing,
A dream, long buried, remembered again.
It is every child of the diaspora learning to say,
“I remember who I am.”
Model: Isa Tabasuares
Model: Isa Tabasuares
Credits:
Photographer & Concept: Geraldine Hutt [@photobygeraldine]
Model: Isa Tabasuares [@isatabasuares]
Designer: Bree L. Esplanada [@breesplanads]
Art Direction: Amando Glischke [@agp.film]
Hair & Makeup: Mel Michael Montajes [@melmichaelmontajes]
Styling: Tracy Ahimie [@tracy_a]
Set Design: Juliette Lejeune [@gu_prod]
Styling Assistant: Emily Huber [@yardsofyarns]
Production Assistant: Henry Hahnfeldt [@henryhahnfeldt]
Retouch: Chia-Ho Tien [@tienchiaho], Geraldine Hutt
Accessories: @cambio_co
