November 23 – December 6, 2024
First United Building Community Museum
Escolta Street, Manila
In the depths of the forest, beneath its towering trees, a world we often overlook quietly thrives: the forest floor. This layer of life is teeming with mosses, ferns, and small plants, each playing a quiet but important role in the ecosystem. Conservationists Jershon Pagilagan and Fort Molina draw inspiration from this hidden beauty, recreating it in terrariums; in miniature worlds enclosed in glass where plants thrive in their own microclimate.
The vision that inspired these terrariums came from a three-day hike through the northern part of the Sierra Madre in Aurora Province. While most hikers focused on reaching the summit, for Jershon and Fort, the real joy lay in the smallest details: beneath their feet, alive with intricate textures—the forest floor.
What started as a childhood hobby of gathering seeds and growing plants has since blossomed into a lifelong passion and business for Jershon and Fort. Here, their dedication takes on a different form: an exhibit. Using terrariums filled with native Philippine plants, they want to tell a story of the resilience of nature in the face of human destruction. Correspondingly, while humankind has the power to harm the environment, we also have the capacity to heal and nurture it.
This optimism resonates with the inspiration behind the exhibit’s title, The World We Made, drawn from Jonathon Porritt’s 2013 book of the same name. In the book, a fictional narrator reflects on humanity’s journey to a sustainable future by 2050. By then, the world is greener and more connected through decades of collective action and prudent innovation.
With equal hopefulness, Jershon and Fort’s work invites us to imagine the world they made—a world where even the smallest things can spark change, where even the smallest actions can ripple outward.
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