New Art Installation In SMC Reflects On Home And Displacement

REDWOOD CITY, CA — The newest installation at the art kiosk in Redwood City titled “Ancestral Home” honors family histories while reflecting on broader experiences of home and displacement and will run through Jan. 4.

Mik and May Gaspay, a Filipino-American artist mother-son duo, created the structurally rich quilts of "Ancestral Home" as a tangible, immersive experience. Merging traditional craft with contemporary art, their work transforms memory and heritage into storytelling.

"During the pandemic we started talking about loss and the things we’ve left behind through our migration from the Philippines to the US. We have been using the process of quilting as a way to record our family oral histories and reconstitute memories into a physical object," Mik Gaspay told Patch.

Their installation at the Art Kiosk, at 2208 Broadway St. in Redwood City, centers on the family's home in Enrile, Philippines, which was destroyed by a typhoon. By transforming this loss into a point of reflection and renewal, the piece explores themes of home, loss, and inheritance, effectively reimagining absence as a generative space.

"Translating the absence of our family’s home in Enrile into a sculptural quilt began with acknowledging that what remains is not the physical structure itself, but the memories, gestures, and emotional textures attached to it," Mik told Patch. "Because the house no longer exists, we turned to the quilt as a medium that could hold both remembrance and reconstruction. Its layered, tactile nature allowed us to rebuild the home piece by piece—much as memory itself is assembled from fragments of what was once whole."

Mik and May reconstructed the house as a personal and collective monument through the deliberate, tactile acts of cutting, stitching, and layering. This structure is built from resilience, memory, and collaboration.

"Our hope is that the installation encourages viewers to recognize how the themes that shape one family — migration, resilience, care — echo across many others, fostering a sense of connection and shared humanity in this communal public space," Mik told Patch.

The art kiosk is provided by the Redwood City Improvement Association, in collaboration with Fung Collaborative.