Looking Back to Reconstruct

Visit a comically cinematic collection of moving images at Su Hui-yu’s first solo exhibition in the Philippines.

Words Rica Mae Labbao
Photos courtesy of UP Vargas Museum
May 19, 2026

What's something from the past that you would want to reinvent? 

For Su Hui-yu, the answer fits perfectly with the idea to reconstruct films and movies consumed during the unsettling chaos of the Martial Law era. He utilized a process to bend back these old narratives and redo it in a monumental way.

In his work ‘Reshoot to Reconstruct’, four moving images serve as the focal points of an artistic collection that refuses the standards to stretch timeframes. 

The Space warriors and the Digigrave (2025) | Giclee print

Su Hui-yu bends bodies, personalities, settings, and age through satirical art, bravely tackling multimedia produced during the Martial Law and redoing it comically.

At the UP Vargas Museum, the exhibition restages The Trio Hall (2023), The Women's Revenge (2020), The Space Warriors and the Digigrave(2025), and Future Shock (2019). This collection was created using a distinct technique called “reshooting,” which essentially remakes what has been painfully there.

Future Shock (2019)

The process of reshooting involves tracing back storyplots, retrieving past collections, deconstructing and reframing narratives, and reconstructing it in a grandiose manner with all the significantly flamboyant details that completes that overall objective of the project. 

In this world, the scenes are unsettled between the border of fabrication and actuality.

The Trio Hall (2023)

Since March 21, this “speculative” project has attracted a wide array of audiences which offers an immersive experience that draws them into his creative sprawling world. 

Based in Taipei, Su Hui-yu is known for his works that often serves as humorous canvases of his opinionated commentaries about the connection of history and culture with mass media.