Alice Sarmiento

Born 1985 in Quezon City/Philippines.

She received her Bachelor of Science in Clothing Technology from the University of the Philippines in 2009. Shortly after graduating, she briefly worked in retail before returning to the university to teach apparel design and costume history courses. It was during this stint as an instructor that she began taking her MA with the department of art studies, major in museum studies. During this time, she cultivated a writing practice that would later turn into curatorial projects.

In November of 2015, Alice was awarded a grant by the Japan Foundation Asia Center, to participate in a two-year-long curatorial development program entitled Condition Report. Focused on contemporary art in Southeast Asia, Alice was part of the curatorial team for ESCAPE from the SEA, an exhibition headed by curators SauBin Yap and Hiroyuki Hattori at both the Arts Printing Workshop and the National Visual Arts Gallery in Kuala Lumpur/Malaysia. After this, she presented Living Spaces in August of 2017 at Vetro Gallery in Quezon City/Philippines. This was her first curatorial effort, dealing with contradictions between real estate imagery and questions of housing in Metro Manila. In February of 2018, Alice was among the curators of the first Manila Biennale, held at various venues across Intramuros, a walled city and heritage site in Manila.

Alice’s writings have been published in Ideas, the online journal of the Asia Art Archive, Plaridel: A Journal of Communication, Media, and Society, the Japan Foundation Asia Center’s Art Studies series, and the second volume of Critical Cartography of Art and Visuality in the Global Age, published by Cambridge Scholars. She is also a contributor to CNN Philippines Life.

Aside from her work in the cultural sector, Alice has been volunteering with the Philippine Animal Welfare Society since 2011. In March of 2017, she co-founded Grrrl Gang Manila, an organization dedicated to creating safe spaces for young women to discuss feminist issues.

Alice Sarmiento still makes clothes on occasion and has recently learned to crochet. She lives and works in Quezon City/Philippines. 

Alice Sarmiento’s fellowship for cultural journalism is financed by the Carl Zeiss Foundation.