Beyond the Booths: The MoCAF 2025 Experience
Beyond exhibitions and installations, MoCAF 2025 became a space where contemporary art connected people through shared moments of reflection, creativity, and community.
Words Mian Centeno
Photos courtesy of MoCAF
May 15, 2026
There are art fairs that impress you for a moment, and there are ones that stay with you long after you leave. MoCAF 2025 was the latter.
For three days, the Marquis Events Place in Bonifacio Global City became a living space of stories, emotions, and shared experiences. Under the bright gallery lights and in carefully curated spaces, there was an intimate reminder that art, at its core, is deeply human.
Art+ Magazine Booth
Modern and Contemporary Art Festival (MoCAF) 2025 further amplified its mission to bring together artists from diverse fields and mediums in one colorful space.
Its signature welcoming aura—enhanced by a scent crafted by their partner artisans, Lumi Candles—offered a comforting approach to modern and contemporary art for seasoned collectors and first-time visitors.
Among the festival’s biggest highlights was Toym Imao’s installation, Debugging. This 12-foot-tall spiral staircase sculpture easily caught the attention of attendees beyond its size. Still, the deeper message inscribed within it about history, truth, and accountability—carrying a quiet heaviness that stayed with every onlooker.
Debugging by Toym Imao
Inside the Ballroom Hall can be found another memorable exhibition by Bryan Teves: The Beauty of Becoming. His hyperrealistic works, inspired by nature, fantasy, and cultural heritage, felt both grand and intimate at once. Many visitors found themselves entranced by the exhibition’s visually pleasing demeanor and the quiet reflection on becoming, changing, and understanding oneself that the piece had showcased.
The Beauty of Becoming by Bryan Teves
More than its major exhibitions, MoCAF 2025’s moments also thrived in its artisan booths, where local makers proudly displayed their products crafted with love, patience, and care.
The joyous soul and bright ambiance also lived in the workshops, where strangers sit side by side, learning and experiencing art-making together.
DBTK Booth
It breathed in the conversations sparked during discussions on Philippine typography, Art and Artificial Intelligence, and artistic expression, reflecting on how creativity continues to evolve in the current landscape.
Even the simple act of stopping for coffee or sharing food became part of the experience. Across multiple stores, attendees level up their breaks with food—a small but meaningful reminder that festivals like MoCAF are not only about art viewing but about cultivating a space where creativity naturally becomes part of everyday life.
MoCAF Dialogue featuring The Art of Cariño Brutal with Tita Baby
Beyond the exhibitions and activities, one of the festival’s most meaningful highlights was its continued commitment to giving back—a collision of art and agency. Through collaborations with Fundación Sansó’s ScholarSIP and initiatives such as the Mbrace Project, MoCAF demonstrated that its purpose extends beyond mere art exhibition.
Efforts like these reflected the festival’s belief in supporting young creatives, building opportunities, and making the arts more accessible to communities that needed them most.
Moreover, a huge part of MoCAF 2025’s soul was the people who spent months pouring immeasurable effort into bringing the festival to life. What visitors experienced over a few days was the culmination of endless planning, coordination, installation, and collaboration among artists, curators, organizers, and even the volunteers.
From booth curation and workshop management to logistics and last-minute problem-solving, the team behind the scenes devoted not only their time but pieces of themselves to make the experience possible.
And perhaps that made MoCAF 2025 feel entirely different.
Beyond the scale, the exhibitions, or the crowd it drew, the festival succeeded because it never lost sight of the human connections at its core. Every artwork, conversation, workshop, and shared moment contributed to a larger atmosphere of openness, curiosity, and community.
Thus, MoCAF 2025 became a celebration of shared creativity and community—offering a rare space where people could slow down, reconnect, and leave with fragments of stories that no longer felt distant from their own.
And with July around the corner, MoCAF 2026 will have bigger shoes to fill. Perhaps its greatest challenge is not becoming larger, but remaining just as human.
