Joshua Serafin

Joshua Serafin is a multi-disciplinary artist who combines dance, performance, visual arts, film, and choreography. Born in the Philippines, they are currently based in Brussels.

They are a graduate of Philippine High School for the Arts where they majored in Theatre Arts. They studied at Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts majoring in contemporary dance. Graduated from P.A.R.T.S. in 2019, and gained their Bachelors in Performance from KASK in 2021, graduated with their Masters's in Fine Arts in Visual Arts in KASK School of the Arts in 2022 with great distinction and their master’s work has won the award Horliet-Dapsens Prij 2022. In 2023 they have been nominate for Anti Festival Live Arts Prize in Finland. They are currently a house artist in Viernulvier in Ghent from 2023-2027.

They have collaborated with multiple artists in Asia and Europe ranging from performance to visual arts such as Arco Renz, Eisa Jocson, Manuel Pelmus, Ming Wong, Adrian Wong, Choy Ka Fai, Leeroy New, Korakrit Arunanondchai, TG Stan company, Damien Jalet, and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, and so forth. They have presented their work at different festivals such as Deltebre Dansa (Spain), Queer Zagreb (Croatia), Centre National de la Danse Paris, Wing Platform Hong Kong, Bouge B Festival (deSingel), Meteor Festival (Bergen Norway), Nightshift in (Ostende), Taipei Performing Art Center, Theater Rotterdam, Dampfzentrale Tanz (Bern), Esplanade (Singapore). They have exhibited their work in museums such as Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong), and Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin). They are currently touring their works: 'MISS', 'VOID film', 'VOID live performance', Creation Paradigm film, and currently developing their next theatre performance 'PEARLS'.

Their works deal with questions about identity, transmigration, queer politics and representation, states of being, and ways of inhabiting the body. Their cosmology of works creates new forms of rituals, and embodiment, based on queer ecologies. Serafin’s work as a maker, performer, and dancer has been recently internationally acclaimed as they actively show and tour their work across the contemporary art scenes of Europe and in festivals in East Asia. Whether performing on stage, inside the museum, or through video and photography, Serafin’s artistic process is an intense sociological exorcism of Filipino identity in relation to global ideologies; unpacking the historical violence of its feudal contemporary society and its dehumanising normality.