A Day in the Life: Derek Tumala

Cultivating a creative process

A Day in the Life is a series by A&M where we invite artists to share a day in their life through images accompanied by brief descriptions.

Derek Tumala. Photo by Jack Alindahao.

Derek Tumala (b. 1986) is a Philippine artist who works across different mediums from light, video, sculpture, and performance to found objects. His works contemplate present conditions through the lens of futurism, art and technology. For A Day in the Life, Derek reflects upon a past exhibition Waiting to Exhale and likens his creative process to cultivating a garden.

Derek Tumala, Waiting to Exhale exhibition, 2021, installation view at The Drawing Room Gallery. Image courtesy of the artist.

As part of creating Waiting to Exhale, I wanted to emulate a garden made of “unwanted weeds” to counter the thinking that a garden overrun by weeds has no future as a garden.

Shaping artworks at the studio for Waiting to Exhale exhibition, 2021. Image courtesy of Derek Tumala.

I use dichroic film, which creates a translucent, ever-ambiguous appearance that changes colour at every turn. For me, this material is transformative and always becoming, a trait that I relate to my creative process.

Cutting materials at the studio. Image courtesy of Derek Tumala.

I cut each piece with a particular leaf shape in mind or emotion. I created my own leaf shapes and "foraged" them together in a bundle.

Flowers at the studio. Image courtesy of Derek Tumala.

Every week, I buy myself flowers. My favourites are white lilies. I watch them bloom over time, then die. This temporal beauty has taught me that nature is a never-ending cycle of birth and death.

Working at the studio. Image courtesy of Derek Tumala.

The time I spend in my studio is akin to cultivating a garden. A garden where my own flowers bloom in unexpected ways, where my dog lounges and time becomes irrelevant.

Find out more about Derek Tumala’s works on Instagram.