To speak of contemporary art in the Philippines is to confront the complexities beneath the surface of what’s visible. Throughout 2025, environmental and social instabilities shaped artistic practices in response to layered meanings of contemporaneity, self-archiving, reencountering of the past, and the reevaluating of what defines Philippine art within and beyond the archipelago.

At the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), “Moments of Delay,” curated by Arianna Mercado and James Tana, drew from Boris Groys’s notion of a “potentially infinite period of delay” to explore the present as an unfolding state of temporal suspension. Thirteen artists and collectives reflected on various mediations of technology, social and political anxieties, and their personal introspections regarding deferral: Miguel Lorenzo Uy’s Screen (2021/25) featured glitches echoing interruptions in time; Ronyel Compra’s Pouring a million earth into a hollowed star (2022) invited pause as an act of resistance; and Lesley-Anne Cao’s If time is an arrow, what is its target (2023/25) employed wax as a metaphor for slow-burning contemplation. 
The exhibition extended beyond objects, featuring extensive public programs to foster community engagement.