A Preview of Society of 23’s Conservatory
An exhibition by Jeffrey Augustine Songco
On view at Lamont Gallery, an art gallery located on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire
January 2 - March 7, 2025
Opening Reception: January 16, 5 - 7pm
Artist Talk: February 6, 5:30 - 7pm
Society of 23’s Conservatory is a multi-media exhibition of installation art, photography, and video. For the last fifteen years, Jeffrey Augustine Songco has continued to make artwork based on the Society of 23 — a fictional brotherhood of 23 mysterious gentlemen all portrayed by the artist himself. Songco’s artwork examines the construction of his personal identities and their relationships to the actual society in which he exists. In Society of 23’s Conservatory, the artist explores a complicated relationship between his identity as an American of Filipino ethnicity and the colonial American behavior of conspicuously collecting “exotic” plants during the US rule over the Philippines from 1898 – 1946. Visitors to Lamont Gallery are invited to wander through the immersive site-specific installation which highlights the unique floor plan and interior details of the space, including 3 rarely exposed skylights.
After moving to his home in Michigan with his partner, Songco’s parents gifted the couple a pair of hand-carved Filipino wooden flower arrangements. These modular objects were a strong inspiration for Songco’s newest sculptures. At Lamont Gallery, Songco will exhibit an immersive installation reminiscent of an American conservatory room filled with hundreds of abstract and colorful acrylic flowers. For the artist, the acrylic flowers are a representation of his identity as an American of Filipino ethnicity — a reference to both his parents’ gift and his personal navigation through the landscape of a kind of alien world.
Listen to Songco’s August 2024 interview where he shares the beginnings of this flower series: Stateside Podcast on Michigan Public NPR, The Creative World of Jeffrey Augustine Songco
Within the installation, Songco also exhibits a new video artwork titled The Fabulous Society of 23: Episode Two. The 10-minute single channel video without audio is a time-based artwork that the artist considers an intellectual exercise. While watching a brother of the Society of 23 (without audio) guide you through a tutorial of making a flower arrangement with these acrylic flowers, Songco has included subtitles that transmit the text of US Proclamation 2695 and the Treaty of Manila — two documents that were simultaneously signed on July 4, 1946 which granted sovereignty to the Philippines from the US. Songco is passionate about reality television as a mode of communication for complex ideas and deep emotions. As the host of his own flower arranging tutorial video, he wears a crisp white shirt à la Martha Stewart and a pair of handmade friendship bracelets in the colors of the US and Philippine flags. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to handle the artwork themselves and create their own flower arrangements.
Society of 23’s Conservatory is an immersive, site-specific installation that combines photography, video, and sculpture in a multisensory experience. Jeffrey Augustine Songco captures the look and feel of a conservatory meets greenhouse during the sun-drenched days of summer, as he invites visitors to deeply explore themes such as friendship, perfection, non-native, and exoticism. Through the scope of florals and bouquet arrangements, Songco "plants" visual clues and messages throughout the space, inviting viewers to reflect on their own personal and cultural origin stories and consider the constructs we create and dismantle for ourselves.
—Pam Meadows, Lamont Gallery Director & Curator
For inquiries regarding the exhibition, please contact:
Pam Meadows
Lamont Gallery Director & Curator
pmeadows@exeter.edu
Jeffrey Augustine Songco
Artist
jeffrey@songco.org
To learn more about the artist’s background, please visit his About page and CV.