IJWBAA [eej-wah] is a Filipino digital artist and the first Filipino recognized in the Techspressionism movement. He is a neologist and the originator of Decolonial Minimalism—an art movement that reclaims minimalism through ancestral memory and cultural reawakening. His works, compiled in two volumes of I Just Wannabe an Artist, have been recognized, officially archived, cataloged, and made available in the collections of the Gallerie degli Uffizi, Museo Reina Sofía, the National Museum of the Philippines, Getty Research Institute, and other prominent cultural institutions worldwide.

Bagobo

Bagobo

Decolonial Minimalism Founding Work - Indigenous People

Size: 1400 x 1400 pixels

Medium: Digital Art

Artist: IJWBAA

Year: 2025

Description:

These figures, stripped to elemental forms yet clad in ancestral intricacy, embody the decolonial minimalism vision: a visual grammar where cultural density and intentional restraint coexist. Each silhouette recalls the spirit of Bagobo tradition—diamond grids that evoke woven abaca, ceremonial rings stacked like oral histories, and headpieces that balance reverence with rebellion.

Their stillness is performative, as if bearing witness to memory rather than reenacting it. The sticks beneath them—part scaffolding, part staff—suggest both burden and grounding. This isn’t just minimalism; it’s a reclamation of space through quiet symbols.

Decolonial minimalism isn’t about erasure—it’s a protest against visual clutter that silences. It asks: what remains when we distill the indigenous gaze?

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