Twenty seven years before everyone became a photographer, Lita Puyat traveled to Batanes with a medium-format film camera and no agenda but “to see.” BATANES Revisited, a series of eight black-and-white photographs that Puyat is showing at Art Fair Philippines 2026, as a guest exhibitor at the FotomotoPH, feels like a transmission from another world. Not only because the images capture the remote northernmost islands of the Philippines, but also because they document a way of seeing that is rapidly disappearing.
It’s a fitting homecoming for images that represent photography at its most intentional, shown at a fair that has spent over a decade championing Filipino art.
A fair built on “proudly local” vision
Founded by Lisa Periquet, Trickie Lopa, and Dindin Araneta in 2013, Art Fair Philippines has transformed the local contemporary art scene by focusing on Filipino creative talent. The fair’s DNA traces back to 2006’s Art in the Park, which proved art didn’t need elite venues or prohibitive prices to matter.
Running February 6-8 at Circuit Corporate Center One in Circuit Makati, Art Fair PH 2026 continues showcasing top-tier local contemporary work. Approximately 80% of participating galleries are Philippine-based. From The Link carpark to Ayala Triangle Gardens and now Circuit Makati, the fair has chosen venues that transform familiar urban spaces into unexpected art destinations.
Within this ecosystem of curated exhibitions and educational programs, FotomotoPH’s presentation of BATANES Revisited offers something increasingly rare: a meditation on photography before the digital deluge.
Film, patience, and the islands
Created in the late 90s, Puyat’s images predate the smartphone and algorithmic feed. The islanders she encountered welcomed her warmly and unselfconsciously. There was no playback, no filter, no share button. Each frame required intention. “Working with a medium-format film camera requires slowness, careful seeing, thought and patience,” Puyat recalls. “Nothing is instant or automatic.”
This contrasts sharply with contemporary image-making, where millions of photographs are captured daily and disappear into scrolling feeds. Puyat’s BATANES Revisited represents photography as contemplation rather than reflex, encounter rather than extraction.
First exhibited at the Ayala Museum in 2000, the series marked a turning point for Puyat. At the time, she was among the Philippines’ most sought-after commercial photographers—her work appeared in museum galleries, fashion magazines, billboards along EDSA, and supermarket shelves. Yet self-assigned work, free of client demands, fulfilled her most deeply.
Context and continuation
The timing is significant as today, Puyat builds a comprehensive archive and works toward establishing a photography museum in the Philippines. These quiet images remind us what photography was before it became everything, everywhere, all at once. They also demonstrate what Art Fair Philippines has accomplished: creating a platform where such work can resurface and contribute to ongoing dialogue on Filipino visual culture.
At FotomotoPH’s booth at Art Fair Ph 2026, visitors will encounter images made when photography required a greater degree of commitment—financial, temporal, emotional. They’ll see Batanes as Puyat saw it: not as content to be consumed but as a place and people deserving patient attention.
BATANES REVISITED
LITA R. PUYAT , Guest exhibitor at FotomotoPH booth
ART FAIR PHILIPPINES 2026
Circuit Corporate Center One, Circuit Makati
February 6–8, 2026
Tickets available at artfairph.synergyph.com
9am to 10pm daily
For more information: lita@litapuyat.com
#BatanesRevisited
#Photography
#FotomotoPH
#FilmPhotography
#ArtFairPH2026
#ArtFairPhilippines
#ExpatPH
#ExpatPhilippines
#WhatsOnE
